6 ms·

Yellow Vest Facebook group with 350k members frozen on European election day

78 points by mmoez 7y ago

nscalf 7y ago
This is actually normal, and is done in a lot of countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_silence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_silence. According to this, France acts "on the Saturday before the Sunday election; polling silence included"
- sasasassy 7y ago
  A ban on political campaigning is very different from banning speech on politics in general.
  - keymone 7y ago
    No, it’s really not with such politicized Facebook groups. In fact access to any medium where one’s opinion can get distributed to unreasonable number of consumers should be banned. Contemplate your choice on your own.
    - matthewaveryusa 7y ago
      Agreed. The irony of it all makes me really wonder: is the yellow vest leadership really that stupid to not know they would be throttled before the elections? No, they are led by expert manipulators that are playing a zerosum game -- if some uneducated person cements their belief that they are being silenced by Facebook unreasonablly that's a win. And if you know the laws you can shrug off the lie. Welcome to the era of zerosum politics.
    - phkahler 7y ago
      The more I think about it, this makes sense. No last minute Meme should sway your vote or trigger action. One should know at least a day in advance what they are voting for. OTOH it is sensorship.
- aikah 7y ago
  > This is actually normal, and is done in a lot of countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_silence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_silence. According to this, France acts "on the Saturday before the Sunday election; polling silence included" The yellow vest aren't a political party, they may have individuals running but that page wasn't one of a political party, they aren't even an organisation. This is purely Facebook enforcing political censorship to please the French government, there is nothing normal about it. People are not forced to stop talking about politics on a public forum the day of the elections, that's complete bullshit. It would be like saying, that people gathering into a bar on election day are barred from talking about politics. There is absolutely no such law that mandates that in France. So please explain us what is normal about it again?
  - NotPaidToPost 7y ago
    I disagree. French law states: "A partir de la veille du scrutin à zéro heure, il est également interdit de diffuser ou de faire diffuser par tout moyen de communication au public par voie électronique tout message ayant le caractère de propagande électorale." [Article L49 of the Code Electoral] I.e. it is illegal to disseminate or to have disseminated any "electoral propaganda" message through any electronic communication mean from the Saturday before polling day (which always takes place on a Sunday). Any Facebook post, tweet, email, SMS text, etc which content is aimed at influencing the poll is thus illegal and it is not hard to understand why they blocked that group during the weekend.
    - aikah 7y ago
      "Tout message ayant le caractère de propagande électorale". Tu vas devoir prouver que la page Facebook des gillets jaunes diffusait des messages ayant "le caractère de propagande électorale", en premier lieu, d'une. Il n'est pas interdit de discuter politique sur un forum le jour même de l’élection. Il n'y a aucune loi en France interdisant les gens de discuter politique le jour du scrutin. Il est interdit aux candidats de faire campagne. propagande électorale =/= propagande politique. La différence est évidence.
      - 7y ago
- scohesc 7y ago
  What I'd like to see is if there's any other social media pages on the other side of the political spectrum that have been blocked.
- Miner49er 7y ago
  Does anybody know if this effected other FB groups? Were any other political groups silenced around this time in France?
wyxuan 7y ago
I'm sure there just be more to this story. World socialist web site doesn't seem like a particularly trustworthy source.
- arthur5005 7y ago
  Yeah, very generic title, full of trash articles. Seems like an outlet for disinformation itself.
- nailer 7y ago
  It's not a trustworthy site, but I can't find any mainstream news sites covering this. There's a https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/14/technology/facebook-france-yellow-vests.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/14/technology/facebook-franc... which has some background on the French Facebook group though.
mmoez 7y ago
It is worth noting that FB made an agreement with the French government last year to directly cooperate with them on filtering and controlling spread of shared content: > Zuckerberg’s meeting with Macron on May 10 reviewed the first half of a year-long collaboration—the first of its kind with any government in the world—in which French officials have been invited directly into Facebook’s content “moderation” offices to analyze the material censored from users’ news feeds. Because what shows up in a given user’s news feed is determined by Facebook’s own algorithms, the company and the state can control the spread of material.
yllus 7y ago
There's a Yellow Vest Canada group on Facebook that is in full-on tinfoil hat conspiracy mode (wildfires in Alberta are being set by Muslims, stuff like that; see https://twitter.com/theBurlyChef/status/1133592129639313409 https://twitter.com/theBurlyChef/status/1133592129639313409 ). I wouldn't be surprised if the use of a European group to spread disinformation or even promote violence caused this to happen.
- tapland 7y ago
  These rapid growing movements seldom have any requirements to join and allow the spread of all kinds of misinformation really well. Another group will pop up in x weeks and the facebook groups will have people doubting vaccines, blaming immigrants, blaming the current government, and as an average user you can't sort who's just an angry middle aged person or a russian bot.
  - rat9988 7y ago
    Actually in France, the government has been way more often caught lying about the yellow vests than the opposit.
    - deogeo 7y ago
      I haven't heard much about this - care to elaborate?
      - rat9988 7y ago
        One case: https://www.euronews.com/2019/05/02/french-government-claims-protesters-attacked-paris-hospital-but-yellow-vests-challenge-nar https://www.euronews.com/2019/05/02/french-government-claims... There were others, but I'm too lazy to search. I remember seeing one other at least. Never seen any fake news problem with yellow vest. Usually Lemonde is prompt to denounce them.
        arthur5005 7y ago
petre 7y ago
There's a lesson to be learned here and noboby lerns it every time this happens. They should have been using Discourse or something else rather than being at the mercy of facebook. France also has some draconian telecom laws. Like the requirement for obtaining a license to operate a public WiFi AP.

78 points by mmoez 7y ago

This is actually normal, and is done in a lot of countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_silence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_silence. According to this, France acts "on the Saturday before the Sunday election; polling silence included"

sasasassy 7y ago
A ban on political campaigning is very different from banning speech on politics in general.
- keymone 7y ago
  No, it’s really not with such politicized Facebook groups. In fact access to any medium where one’s opinion can get distributed to unreasonable number of consumers should be banned. Contemplate your choice on your own.
  - matthewaveryusa 7y ago
    Agreed. The irony of it all makes me really wonder: is the yellow vest leadership really that stupid to not know they would be throttled before the elections? No, they are led by expert manipulators that are playing a zerosum game -- if some uneducated person cements their belief that they are being silenced by Facebook unreasonablly that's a win. And if you know the laws you can shrug off the lie. Welcome to the era of zerosum politics.
  - phkahler 7y ago
    The more I think about it, this makes sense. No last minute Meme should sway your vote or trigger action. One should know at least a day in advance what they are voting for. OTOH it is sensorship.
aikah 7y ago
> This is actually normal, and is done in a lot of countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_silence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_silence. According to this, France acts "on the Saturday before the Sunday election; polling silence included" The yellow vest aren't a political party, they may have individuals running but that page wasn't one of a political party, they aren't even an organisation. This is purely Facebook enforcing political censorship to please the French government, there is nothing normal about it. People are not forced to stop talking about politics on a public forum the day of the elections, that's complete bullshit. It would be like saying, that people gathering into a bar on election day are barred from talking about politics. There is absolutely no such law that mandates that in France. So please explain us what is normal about it again?
- NotPaidToPost 7y ago
  I disagree. French law states: "A partir de la veille du scrutin à zéro heure, il est également interdit de diffuser ou de faire diffuser par tout moyen de communication au public par voie électronique tout message ayant le caractère de propagande électorale." [Article L49 of the Code Electoral] I.e. it is illegal to disseminate or to have disseminated any "electoral propaganda" message through any electronic communication mean from the Saturday before polling day (which always takes place on a Sunday). Any Facebook post, tweet, email, SMS text, etc which content is aimed at influencing the poll is thus illegal and it is not hard to understand why they blocked that group during the weekend.
  - aikah 7y ago
    "Tout message ayant le caractère de propagande électorale". Tu vas devoir prouver que la page Facebook des gillets jaunes diffusait des messages ayant "le caractère de propagande électorale", en premier lieu, d'une. Il n'est pas interdit de discuter politique sur un forum le jour même de l’élection. Il n'y a aucune loi en France interdisant les gens de discuter politique le jour du scrutin. Il est interdit aux candidats de faire campagne. propagande électorale =/= propagande politique. La différence est évidence.
    - 7y ago
scohesc 7y ago
What I'd like to see is if there's any other social media pages on the other side of the political spectrum that have been blocked.
Miner49er 7y ago
Does anybody know if this effected other FB groups? Were any other political groups silenced around this time in France?

wyxuan 7y ago

I'm sure there just be more to this story. World socialist web site doesn't seem like a particularly trustworthy source.

arthur5005 7y ago
Yeah, very generic title, full of trash articles. Seems like an outlet for disinformation itself.
nailer 7y ago
It's not a trustworthy site, but I can't find any mainstream news sites covering this. There's a https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/14/technology/facebook-france-yellow-vests.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/14/technology/facebook-franc... which has some background on the French Facebook group though.

mmoez 7y ago

It is worth noting that FB made an agreement with the French government last year to directly cooperate with them on filtering and controlling spread of shared content: > Zuckerberg’s meeting with Macron on May 10 reviewed the first half of a year-long collaboration—the first of its kind with any government in the world—in which French officials have been invited directly into Facebook’s content “moderation” offices to analyze the material censored from users’ news feeds. Because what shows up in a given user’s news feed is determined by Facebook’s own algorithms, the company and the state can control the spread of material.

yllus 7y ago

There's a Yellow Vest Canada group on Facebook that is in full-on tinfoil hat conspiracy mode (wildfires in Alberta are being set by Muslims, stuff like that; see https://twitter.com/theBurlyChef/status/1133592129639313409 https://twitter.com/theBurlyChef/status/1133592129639313409 ). I wouldn't be surprised if the use of a European group to spread disinformation or even promote violence caused this to happen.

tapland 7y ago
These rapid growing movements seldom have any requirements to join and allow the spread of all kinds of misinformation really well. Another group will pop up in x weeks and the facebook groups will have people doubting vaccines, blaming immigrants, blaming the current government, and as an average user you can't sort who's just an angry middle aged person or a russian bot.
- rat9988 7y ago
  Actually in France, the government has been way more often caught lying about the yellow vests than the opposit.
  - deogeo 7y ago
    I haven't heard much about this - care to elaborate?
    - rat9988 7y ago
      One case: https://www.euronews.com/2019/05/02/french-government-claims-protesters-attacked-paris-hospital-but-yellow-vests-challenge-nar https://www.euronews.com/2019/05/02/french-government-claims... There were others, but I'm too lazy to search. I remember seeing one other at least. Never seen any fake news problem with yellow vest. Usually Lemonde is prompt to denounce them.
      - arthur5005 7y ago

petre 7y ago

There's a lesson to be learned here and noboby lerns it every time this happens. They should have been using Discourse or something else rather than being at the mercy of facebook. France also has some draconian telecom laws. Like the requirement for obtaining a license to operate a public WiFi AP.