15/02/2026
In 2015, an eighty-three-year-old Italian philosopher looked at the internet and said something that made people furious — and uncomfortable.
A decade later, we are living inside his warning.
His name was Umberto Eco. He was a medieval scholar, a semiotician who studied how meaning is created, and the author of The Name of the Rose. For decades, he analyzed how ideas spread, how symbols shape belief, and how societies decide what is true.
So when social media began reshaping public life, Eco paid close attention.
In June 2015, during an interview in Italy, he was asked what the internet had changed. His answer was blunt. Social media, he said, gives “legions of idiots” the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, where they were quickly ignored. Now, he warned, they are given the same platform as experts. He called it an invasion.
The backlash was immediate. People accused him of elitism. Of hating democracy. Of wanting to silence ordinary voices.
That reaction missed his point entirely.
Eco was not arguing against free speech. He was warning about what happens when expertise is stripped of value — when years of study, evidence, and accountability are treated as equal to impulse, opinion, or confidence.
For centuries, public discourse had filters. Editors. Peer review. Fact-checking. These systems were flawed and often excluded voices that deserved space. But they enforced responsibility. Claims required evidence. Errors carried consequences.
The internet erased those barriers overnight.
Suddenly, anyone could reach millions. A trained scientist and a conspiracy theorist appeared side by side, formatted identically, amplified by the same algorithms. Platforms rewarded engagement, not accuracy. Outrage traveled faster than nuance. Certainty beat caution every time.
Eco watched as flat-earth communities organized online. As vaccine myths outpaced public-health guidance. As complex political realities were replaced by viral slogans. As the phrase “I did my own research” became a substitute for knowledge.
He understood the danger clearly: giving everyone a voice is not the same as treating every voice as equally authoritative.
A family member’s social-media post about medicine is not equivalent to peer-reviewed research. An influencer’s opinion on climate science does not carry the same weight as decades of data. But online, these distinctions vanish.
Confidence looks like credibility. Volume looks like truth.
Eco wasn’t calling people stupid. He was criticizing systems that amplify the loudest voices regardless of understanding. He saw how respect for expertise was eroding — how facts were being reframed as opinions, and opinions as facts.
Nine months later, in February 2016, Eco died at eighty-four.
He never saw a global pandemic where misinformation spread faster than the virus itself. He didn’t witness deepfake videos or AI-generated propaganda. He didn’t see elections questioned at scale based on claims repeatedly disproven.
But he identified the core problem before it fully arrived.
When every opinion is treated as equally valid, truth becomes optional.
Eco believed democracy depends on informed citizens, not just loud ones. He argued that critical thinking, humility, and deference to evidence are not weaknesses — they are safeguards.
Today, those traits are punished by algorithms. Outrage is rewarded. Certainty is viral. Thoughtfulness is quiet.
And yet, intellectual honesty has become a form of courage.
Eco once said the true hero is someone who wants to be ordinary, honest, and afraid — but does the right thing anyway. In our time, that may mean questioning what we share, asking who benefits from what we believe, and remembering that seeing something online should never be the end of thinking.
Eco didn’t fear people speaking.
He feared truth drowning in noise.
And he left us with a question that still hasn’t been answered:
What are we going to do about it?
