McGill University’s Francofête is a month dedicated to celebrating all aspects of the French language, whether it be the culture it embodies, the city that thrives on it, or the people around the world who speak it every day. As part of Francofête 2026, francophone MPPs Timothée de Lestrange and Théo Sainte-Marie reflect on their key takeaways from the lecture “The Modern Media Ecosystem: Risks, Realities, and Responsibilities” with speakers Farnell Morisset and Aengus Bridgman. [Lire en francais]
Farnell Morisset is a relatively new entrant to the social media landscape, joining the swelling ranks of “influencers” diving into politics and current events for content. Yet in the tightly knit Canadian social media landscape, he is one of Québec’s biggest voices. A graduate of both McGill University and the London School of Economics, and a lawyer by training, Farnell spent some years in the United States before recently returning to Canada. By his own admission, it is not a lucrative career path, nor a particularly welcoming one. Unsurprisingly, the internet has shown itself to be an ambivalent audience, with thoughtful engagement with his content balanced by occasional irrational anger and vitriol. He mostly ignores the latter.
Aengus Bridgman is the Director of the Media Ecosystem Observatory, within the Max Bell School of Public Policy. As a leading academic voice on AI, Bridgman brought a wealth of knowledge about the technical implications of the issues at hand, complementing Mr. Morisset's social lens.
With the discussion carried out entirely in French, the two sat down to explore the intersection of social media, privacy, artificial intelligence, and politics in modern life. Starting with the issue of misinformation and disinformation in the digital landscape, Bridgman and Morisset quickly delved into the comparative differences between American and Canadian influencer landscapes and the personal risks that come with public life. Nevertheless, Morisset applies a positive spin to it all: he fashions his colleagues and himself as a “Fifth Power,” capable, in some ways, of simultaneously keeping politicians and traditional media to account.
Yet the broader societal risks of the proliferation of media on the internet remain present. While Morisset and his contemporaries offer a new method of maintaining an informed populace, especially for younger people, it comes at a price. Some actors of considerable following, whom the panelists left unnamed, have intentionally spread incorrect or highly biased narratives, potentially even under the direction of foreign entities. The “Fifth Power,” they then remarked, will need its own counterbalance, as the court of public opinion has only proved minimally effective. This also bleeds into the dangers of unrestricted youth access, which Morisset and Bridgman slightly diverged on, alongside an apprehensive attending public. While some believed in raising barriers to access for children under 16, Morisset remained ever the optimist, affirming that responsible instruction of internet use is a far more effective tool than simple blanket bans.
The discussion had all in attendance tightly captivated and eager to dig further into the subject matter. As generous in sharing their time as they were in sharing their ideas, the two lit up this section of the Francofete with a rigorous, intellectual exchange.
Walking out of the discussion, one question lingered: is social media a fifth democratic power?
Morisset argued that because of their investigative ability, traditional media outlets are often viewed as a fourth power keeping the three others (executive: governments, legislative: parliaments, judicial: courts) in check. Yet we must recognize that the media outlets do not really keep each other in check. It is rare for a newspaper to directly criticize another, or to question the work of its peers. Indeed, the media field is an impermeable world. When we look at a television set, the commentators are almost all socially homogeneous.
Social media enabled a democratization of public speech, with emerging figures “like us” such as Farnell Morisset, and the possibility for less-followed users to comment, react, share, and even go viral. This diversity among those who “have the floor,” with the ability to call out our political decision-makers and to “debunk” traditional media, would make social media a fifth branch of power. Finally, internet users keep each other in check and criticize themselves, which is rare in traditional media.
We remain cautious about this reflection. We agree that social media could be considered a fifth power. But it is not because they have the potential to make our society more democratic; more so that that is what is currently happening.
While Farnell spoke about the issue at length in different ways, we wish to delve somewhat deeper here. As such, the following remarks serve only to expand the discussion.
Of the 21 million Instagram users in Canada, only a small handful are considered “influencers”. These people are certainly a bit more socially homogeneous than in the political and media world, but “opinion leaders”, meaning people influencing their surroundings in perceiving political news, have always existed, and in every social circle.
It is true that social media allowed people from our everyday life to “make it”, in fact, redistributing public speech. But thinking that this distribution is equitable and democratic would be to forget that it has been done at the discretion of algorithms no one knows how they work, in the hands of private companies mainly from the United-States which have as a stated political goal to influence the political opinions of their users — as on X controlled by the far-right multi-billionaire Elon Musk — and which have all sworn allegiance to Donald Trump and his fascist ideas after he took office in 2025.
Furthermore, the content of this public speech is also controlled. If the moderation of these platforms is supposed to prevent the propagation of disinformation, heinous, or dangerous content, then only TikTok moderates it somewhat effectively. In 2026, a few minutes of scrolling is enough for a vulnerable person to be shown suicidal content. On the other side, words that are indispensable to the public debate are being censored. For instance, content denouncing gender-based violence is taken down at the mention of the word “rape”, and History videos testifying to the barbarism of fascism cannot contain the word “Nazism”. Moreover, social networks’ algorithms work in “silos” or in “bubbles”, and users can rapidly end up in downward masculinistic or conspiracy spirals.
The way public speech is distributed, the content of this speech, and the breadth and composition of the public receiving this speech — all of this is fundamentally undemocratic on social media. Yet, we are convinced of their democratic potential. But for them to become the reflection of the public arena, to enable citizens to debate and democracy to grow, it is absolutely indispensable to revise the foundation of their functioning.
For now, social media does not pursue a democratic or social goal, and their algorithms are sorely lacking in transparency. It now belongs to public decision-makers to seize this policy issue and to ensure that democracy is integrated within the design of social networks and their algorithms.
