Echoes of controversy! Italian writer says social media has given voice to “legion of imbeciles”

Despite being a concrete reality, the presence of social networks and the revolution promoted by Internet, especially in the field of communication, continue to be met with skepticism by academic theorists and old-school intellectuals. This time it was the Italian writer and philosopher Umberto Eco who won the views of the world that you seem to despise.

Critic of the role of new technologies in the process of disseminating information, Eco stated that social networks give the right to speak to a “legion of imbeciles", who used to speak only "in a bar and after a glass of wine, without harming the community“. The statement was given last week (10), during the event in which he received the title of doctor honoris cause in communication and culture University of Turin, northern Italy.

According to the writer, the TV had already put the “village idiot” on a level where he felt superior. "The internet drama is that she promoted the 'village idiot' to truth bearer“, he added. "Normally, they (the imbeciles) were immediately shut up, but now they have the same right to say as a Nobel Prize winner.“, added the intellectual. The writer even advised newspapers to filter with a “expert team” web information because no one is able to know if a website is “reliable or not".

Perhaps it is necessary to understand the statement in a more contextualized way. THE Internet created a paradox: it can be a great space for learning and sharing knowledge, but it has also created, at the same time, to democratize information and demonstrations, a space for manifestation without criteria of responsibility, in which anonymity can serve as an instrument for the dissemination of hatred.

It is essential to remember that Umberto Eco he is a respectable intellectual admired the world over. some of your texts, written over more than 50 years, are mandatory references in the field of communication. He wrote fundamental works on rhetoric, ideology, literature, semiotics e advertising – as well as producing major essays on pop culture phenomena such as James Bond and the myth of Super-Homem. 

if the social media were simply a gathering of idiots who want to feel important or less lonely, they would have no more meaning than the dozens and hundreds of correspondence clubs that have always existed, through popular magazines and other means. Furthermore, it is undeniable that there was a greater diversification of opinions and a greater democracy in information, removing the monopoly of information from the traditional press, always linked to a conformist view of the facts.

Thus, it is not a matter of recognizing that social networks have given voice to “legion of imbeciles“, but how much the assertion of Umberto Eco can be relativized or applied in other cases, since the The same was said about voting (see our congresses), tourism and even the press (see the quality of our “expert team") when they were democratized.

As it is a new space for discussion, the internet still seeks to establish itself as an extension (or not) of the public sphere. If the lack of mediation produces multiplicity while amplifying idiocy, both idealization on the one hand and labeling on the other are minor contributions to this important debate.

maybe it's notthe articulation of these movements a much more fertile field of ideas; how to build a plural space of ideas where respect and understanding are more widespread than rubbish. It would be paradoxical for a student of communication – as a form of human relationships – to despise something so constitutive of his object of study.

And you, what do you think? Should everyone have a voice on the internet?