Your new post is loading...
Like many social mouvement nowadays, the “Gilets Jaunes” (Yellow Vests) began online. The protests started as a peaceful demonstration against the increase of gas tax. And suddenly violence is rising…
Let’s have a look at @Pascal66616113, with the infamous 8 digits that are often characteristic to bots. The account has been created in December 2018 and from the API we can notice his interface is configured in English (en). How peculiar, for what seems to be a French patriot! Moreover his activity is only during week days from Monday to Thursday and is just relaying anti-Macron pictures. At this point there’s no way to tell if this is a legit French yellow vest or just a fake profile being controlled from a remote location, but it sure does look like it.
In fact, there are plenty of these “throw away” accounts trying to polarize and incite violence throughout France, and the hard part is putting it all together. To which extent are we being manipulated here? What percentage of these accounts are true protesters?
.../...
Make your own opinion and fact check everything you read online.
In a world where a click is more valuable than the truth (gotta keep that pay-per-click model running), even French media are tempted to surrender to sensationalized stories popping up on the Internet. I’d like to see more people use their common sense during times like this. Conspiracy theories are going wild on social networks, and it is our duty to stop disinformation: verify information with tools like AFP’s factcheck.afp.com.
It’s sad to see France becoming another playground for ideologists spreading false information in order to excite people even more. Paris isn’t on fire, France is fine. But tough times ahead…
Peace.
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” — Sun Tzu
1. Celebrities are no longer the real influencers ; they have been replaced by anonymous accounts.
2. #hashtags have become weapons in the disinformation war.
Here is why and how (with data facts)