Fake news, truths and conspiracies

Presented by Géraldine Muhlmann, philosopher and journalist
With David Djaïz, senior civil servant and essayist
Asma Mhalla, teacher, expert in Tech Politics and BigTech Geopolitics
Rudy Reischtag, political scientist, writer and journalist
Patrick Savidan, philosopher 

Any change in the information channel causes upheaval, not so much in the information itself, but in society, within civilisation itself, and, of course, in how we think and act. There's no need to go back to the carrier pigeon or the invention of the printing press: the barely remembered wireless telegraph led to social and political uproar, with some hailing it a divine miracle, others the devil's invention. The pioneers of the Internet hoped that an open digital channel for information and communication would open up the possibility of free and easy self-expression for all, with everyone free to make use of it and thus contribute to creating a perfect version of Wikipedia, through the construction of a transparent and reliable knowledge bank. But that's not what happened. The digital revolution - the Internet, Darknet, smartphones, social networks, artificial intelligence - is not causing upheaval but rather chaos, where the best and the worst coexist, creating "another" world that the tools at our disposal in this world do not allow us to understand fully. The main victim today is the truth itself, which, like metallic paint on a car, is considered simply an optional extra. Anonymity has led to the emergence of millions of autonomous, uncontrolled spheres in which pseudo-theories, beliefs, mere opinions, nonsense, incompetence and conspiracy theories serve as "information", forming foggy swamps where no one knows where they are or what is happening within them. How do we get out of the quicksand? When social conversations become so tense, or science falls under suspicion before being denounced.