How Facebook Groups sparked a crisis in France
by Casey Newton @theVerge
法國黃背心運動是個沒有明確政治訴求 (除了反對增加燃油稅)、民衆自主發起組織的草根運動，起源於一個網路上的請願 (petition)， 隨後在 Facebook 群組 (group) 上誕生了數千個黃背心相關的當地活動，以及一些自封的意見領袖 (a.k.a. 網紅)，掀起的狂潮已經造成 400 人在超過兩千起的示威中受傷，甚至有 1 人死於被車直接碾過。
由於沒有明確的訴求，評論者們提出的理論大多都是主觀臆測，這個活動到底是屬於偏右派還是偏左派都沒有人清楚。
There is also no clear media consensus as to what they are protesting beyond the cost of gas. To some observers, the protesters are primarily angry about what they see as President Emmanuel Macron’s apparent indifference toward tough conditions for working people. To others, the movement is evidence of a middle-class backlash. Meanwhile, it’s not automatically easy to say whether the protest cleaves more to the left or the right.
這些網路上的意見領袖的主張一般都是互相衝突的大雜燴，但他們還是得到了衆多跟隨着，得以在各大媒體上拋頭露面。他們被當做是沒有被精英階層腐化、不說空話、腳踏實地 (a.k.a. 接地氣)的民衆代言人。
Self-appointed thinkers became national figures, thanks to popular pages and a flurry of Facebook Live. One of them, Maxime Nicolle (107,000 followers), organizes frequent impromptu “lives”, immediately followed by thousands of people. His gospel is a hodgepodge of incoherent demands but he’s now a national voice… Right now in France, traditional TV is trailing a social sphere seen as uncorrupted by the elites, unfiltered, and more authentic.
Facebook 似乎在黃背心運動中起到了拖波助瀾的效果，Facebook 新的演算法更容易將自群組的帖子推送到用戶的即時動態 (News Feed)，來自公開頁面 (page) 的帖子 (一般來自主流媒體) 處於嚴重劣勢。 Facebook 稱這樣的演算法能夠解決平臺政治化的問題，但實際上並沒有效果。
Renee DiResta 的文章 “The Digital Maginot Line” 主題雖然是美國的社交網路，但似乎也可套用到法國上。 DeResta 認爲自由民主社會相較於威權社會更容易被煽起暴力政治憤怒情緒，自由民主社會相當不願意審查或刪除已發表言論，所以有惡意的人可以利用這種不對稱大量發布煽動性言論，並且利用演算法放大傳播效果; 在威權國家這種言論會很幹脆的被禁止。如何防止敵人利用這個缺點打擊自己是自由世界一個重要的議題。
We are (rightfully) concerned about silencing voices or communities. But our commitment to free expression makes us disproportionately vulnerable in the era of chronic, perpetual information war. Digital combatants know that once speech goes up, we are loathe to moderate it; to retain this asymmetric advantage, they push an all-or-nothing absolutist narrative that moderation is censorship, that spammy distribution tactics and algorithmic amplification are somehow part of the right to free speech.
這些網紅、Facebook 群組管理員都不是民主選舉產生，然而政治決策和討論卻大量在這些環境內產生。在這些環境中真實情況很可能嚴重的被扭曲，很可能加大社會的分化。雖然還沒有人能證明 Facebook 導致了黃背心運動，但它和其他國家發生的暴力示威有很多類似點，我們也可以預測之後會有更多類似活動在自由社會中出現。
But we can say that what we saw over the weekend is consistent with other angry populist movements that we have seen around the world — many of them violent, and many of them organized on social media. And we can predict with some confidence that more such movements will appear in the world’s liberal democracies, with equally unsettling results.