The Internet star, sometimes despite Pope Francis, who died on Monday, was able to exploit social networks for communication while regularly warning against the risks of misinformation and the possible derivations of artificial intelligence (AI).
Created in 2012 by his predecessor Benedict XVI, only a few months before his choice to the pontificate, the X account (ex-twitter) @pontifx contributed to modernize the communication of the head of the Catholic Church, pointing in particular the youngest.
François was immediately a great success in this network. A total of 50 million followers, the account is available in nine languages: English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Polish, German, Arabic and even Latin, which is surprisingly successful, with a million subscribers.
Denunciation and warning
In March 2016, three years after the day after the start of his pontificate, the Argentine Pope goes further with the creation of the Instagram Franciscus account, which attracts almost 10 million followers. As in X, the Vatican publishes photos and videos there every day, mostly religious, extracted from the speeches, texts and public interventions of the spiritual leader more than 1.4 billion Catholics in the world.
His last video on Instagram, an extract of his speech during the Easter Mass on Sunday, was “like” for almost 400,000 people. This popularity does not prevent it from regularly denouncing the negative effects of social networks.
Last January, while X, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, is suspected of spreading false information and manipulating the public debate in Europe, denounces “misinformation and polarization, where some power centers control an unprecedented mass and information.”
A few days before, he had already punished an era of “false news” and warned against excess artificial intelligence (AI) when used to “manipulate consciences.”
He himself was the object of images generated by AI and went viral on the web, the representative of the nightclub or married. In March 2023, the images of Pope Francis with a luxurious white jacket of Balenciaga, suddenly crucifix, in a style that evoked that of the American rappers, had gone around the world in just a few hours.
However, the Church did not last long to understand these tools to evangelize: platforms such as category or hellobable, therefore, they propose to illuminate the faithful about the Catholic doctrine.
Source: BFM TV
