Are We Truly Evolved? The Social Guillotine and Our Return to the Past

We like to believe it, we convince ourselves that we are evolved creatures, enlightened by reason, guided by principles of civility and respect. And yet, a fleeting glance at the dynamics igniting the web, at the fierce interactions on social media, is enough to glimpse a disturbing shadow, a distant echo of a time we thought we had left behind: the Middle Ages.

We have returned to the Middle Ages, and we didn’t even notice. Before, the guilty or presumed guilty were lynched in the town square by an enraged mob. Then came the Enlightenment, individual rights, the law, the certainty of justice – until now, when, in the name of justice, people are lynched, media-wise, and ruined while still presumed innocent, by the crowd, without any trial, without any guarantees.

The New Digital Lynching: Victims and Tormentors in the Age of Social Media

The advent of social media and its pervasiveness in our daily lives have triggered a disturbing phenomenon: the birth of a veritable “People’s Media Court.” It’s no longer just social networks, but an expanded media system that includes online newspapers, blogs, forums, and even television, where summary trials and anticipated condemnations are consumed every day, often without appeal. Everything must make news, create noise, cause a sensation. Everything must excite, stimulate, agitate. Tones have now been taken to extreme levels, words are not spoken but shouted, opinions are formed immediately, as is judgment, often, or almost always, expressed without even knowing the facts, which are a tedious thing, requiring time and patience, analysis. The “social guillotine” falls with unprecedented violence on anyone who makes a misstep, utters an unfortunate phrase, or finds themselves in the crosshairs of collective indignation, turning individuals’ lives into a media hell even before justice, real justice, can take its course.

The Digital Mob: Strength in Numbers, Cowardice in Solitude

Like then, today we find ourselves part of a crowd. A digital crowd, certainly, but no less powerful, no less angry, no less inclined to summary judgment and condemnation without appeal. We feel strong, protected by the anonymity of a profile, by the multitude of voices that join our cry of indignation. But if we were isolated, if we were called to answer individually for the sentences we issue so lightly online, perhaps our voice would become more uncertain, our pointing finger less steady. Just like the medieval mobs, our strength lies in numbers, our cowardice in solitude.

The Oblivion of Reason: When Indignation Prevails Over Civility

We believed that ignorance was the driving force behind that summary justice of the past. Today, in the information age, where knowledge should be just a click away, we are witnessing a worrying regression. It seems that the cardinal principles of civil coexistence, respect for rules, trust in the institutions responsible for guaranteeing justice, have weakened, almost been forgotten. Anger, arrogance, the presumption of holding absolute truth push us to bypass any form of guarantee, any principle of law. The presumption of innocence? An obsolete concept in the face of popular fury. The right to a fair trial? A bothersome frill when the crowd has already delivered its verdict.

The Media Guillotine: A Dangerous Bypass

The “media guillotine” is precisely this: a dangerous bypass of the justice system, a return to a form of do-it-yourself “justice,” where the emotions and indignation of the moment prevail over reason and law. And the question arises spontaneously: why? Why, despite our presumed evolution, do we abandon ourselves to this thirst for immediate and ruthless judgment? Why do we prefer summary condemnation to the complexity of analysis, blind rage to the patient search for truth?

Spacey, Hart, Sacco: Stories of “Cancellation” in the Digital Age

The stories of Kevin Spacey, “canceled” even before a judicial verdict, of Kevin Hart, forced to give up hosting the Oscars for old jokes, or of Justine Sacco, whose life was shattered by an ill-considered tweet, are just a few examples of how the “social guillotine” can be implacable and disproportionate. In these cases, the “punishment” inflicted by the media court has often been more severe and lasting than what a real court could have issued, based on concrete evidence and respecting procedural guarantees.

The Vicious Cycle: Victims Today, Executioners Tomorrow

What makes this phenomenon particularly disturbing is its cyclical nature and the ease with which the roles of victim and executioner can be reversed. Today we point the finger at someone for a mistake or a controversial opinion; tomorrow, we ourselves could end up in the media meat grinder for a misunderstood phrase or an unfortunate post. Moderation seems to have disappeared, replaced by a binary and polarized logic where nuances do not exist, and forgiveness is a rare commodity. Social media, with their immediacy and their ability to amplify emotions, thus become fertile ground for continuous and endless lynching.

Are We Truly So Different? The Uncomfortable Question

Perhaps the truth is uncomfortable: perhaps, beneath the veneer of modernity and progress, our human nature is not so different from that of our medieval ancestors. Perhaps the thirst for power, the need to feel superior, the tendency to find a scapegoat on whom to unload our frustrations are still rooted in us. And social media, with their ability to amplify our emotions and create communities based on hatred and resentment, only exacerbate these dark dynamics.

Let’s Look in the Mirror: The True Face of the Social Guillotine

Let’s not point the finger at “others,” at a generic “them.” The social guillotine is us. It is us, with our impulsive comments, with our haste to judge, with our complacency in participating in media lynching. It is us who, hidden behind a screen, feel authorized to say and do things we would never have the courage to do in real life. It is us who have lost the compass of respect, tolerance, simple humanity.

Perhaps it is time to stop, to look in the mirror, and to ask ourselves some uncomfortable questions. Are we really satisfied with this return to the past? Do we really want to live in a society where a person’s reputation can be destroyed in an instant by an anonymous and relentless digital mob? Are we really as evolved as we like to believe?

The answer, perhaps, is more bitter than we would like to admit. But it is only by becoming aware of our part of the responsibility in this phenomenon that we can hope to reverse course and rediscover those principles of civility and respect that we believed we had conquered forever.