The battle for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
Les dirigeants politiques, nouvelles stars des réseaux sociaux.
L’avènement des réseaux sociaux a radicalement transformé la manière de faire de la politique aux quatre coins du globe. Certains présidents, tels Donald Trump et Jair Bolsonaro, l’ont bien compris. Mais le roi des réseaux sociaux n’est autre que Narendra Modi, le Premier Ministre indien, qui a su, dès le départ, se saisir des réseaux sociaux pour les mettre au service de son programme politique et de son image.
When he received the phone call from the leader of the farright League party, Edoardo Della Barbara knew he had won an elaborate Facebook contest. It was February – in the midst of Italy’s general election campaign – and Della Barbara, a 22-year-old university student from Milan, was the latest follower to like the most posts by Matteo Salvini in the shortest amount of time. The prize was a 10-minute one-on-one call with Salvini, which Della Barbara used to talk about his studies and his hope to see reduced taxes on electronic cigarettes. “It was interesting, as doing politics in this way had never been done in Italy before.”
2. “Who will win? Salvini will,” the party leader said in one Facebook video promoting the contest. “The others have newspapers, television, banks and corporate cash … we have you, we have the network … so long as it remains free.” Salvini is not the only populist, on the left or right, to prove adept at innovating with social media. Silicon Valley has given politicians of all stripes the ability to bypass traditional media outlets, communicate directly with voters and sculpt their own image without interference from journalists.
3. Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s president-elect, benefited from viral WhatsApp messaging, while Facebook was turned into a weapon against opponents of the Philippines president, Rodrigo Duterte. And after reaching the White House on the back of a tweetfuelled campaign, Donald Trump famously said: “Maybe I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Twitter.”