回顧 2016 年,英國舉行脫歐公投,最終英國人民選擇離開歐盟。相隔三年,眼看「脫歐」協議迫在眉睫,英國首相 Boris Johnson 於上週末罕見於英國國會開會,而場外聚集大批訴求「留歐」的民眾,他們希望政府不要忽視「正在改變」的民意,要求政府舉行「第二次」脫歐公投。
當天,《Sky News》記者在現場採訪一位抱著女童的婦女,詢問她想要舉行第二次脫歐公投的原因,短短幾分鐘的對答,隨即在社群平台掀起熱議,她被許多網友稱為「英國人的英雄」。
“Democracy is an ongoing process.”
記者提問:「因為你輸了,才想要再次公投嗎?」
婦女直回:「不是!」
記者再問:「你是想藉由再一次舉行公民選舉,得到你想要的結果嗎?那對於那些當初真正贏得勝利的人來說,又是如何?」
婦女表示:「我們不該再有一次普選嗎?我們不需要再舉辦世界盃足球賽嗎?說真的,這沒什麼好爭論的。民主是一個持續不斷的過程,它不是一次性事件。它發生了,而且還會再發生,當我們知道更多,我們應該再被聽見。你不能以謊言為基礎進行全民公決,這個方式是被假定的。」
「我們需要回歸到人民。我們現在知道更多了,人們應該在知道問題後才投票。當他們被騙時,是不應該想要去投票,也不應該希望自己投下的票被政府看重。公投結果根本不值得人尊重。」
短短三天,這則推文在社群網站迎來超過二十萬網友按讚,再次證明:不是所有超級英雄都穿著披風。或許,我們都該了解婦女口中的「謊言」為何?而看似遠在英國的新聞,其實並不遙遠。
脫歐公投後,「什麼是歐盟」成為熱搜
在脫歐公投結束後,英國人開始上網搜尋「什麼是歐盟」。根據 Google 的數據,投票截止後的八小時,有關歐盟的搜尋關鍵字中,「脫歐會發生什事」增加了足足三倍。此外,在正式宣布脫歐後,搜尋排行分別為「離開歐盟代表著什麼?」、「什麼是歐盟?」、「歐盟有哪些國家」。
這似乎證明了許多英國人在不知道「歐盟」的前提就決定去投票,而他們為何會堅定地投下「脫歐」的選擇,若再追查,除了潛藏的排外主義,更多的是結合社群媒體的「數據演算法」,它讓「脫歐」陣營精準找到了中間選民,再投放廣告貼文,讓他們看見內心渴望的答案,煽動情緒。
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Today at F8, I talked about how we're starting to build out a privacy-focused social platform. For the last 15 years, we've built Facebook and Instagram into digital equivalents of the town square, where you can interact with lots of people at once. Now we're focused on building the digital equivalent of the living room, where you can interact in all the ways you'd want privately -- from messaging and stories to secure payments and more. To bring this vision to life, we're building Messenger and WhatsApp into platforms for all kinds of private interactions and working on making end-to-end encryption the default for both. We've redesigned Facebook to make communities as central as friends. We've added new ways to buy things securely on Instagram. Augmented and virtual reality also create more personal and intimate experiences -- so we’re bringing WhatsApp to Portal, adding end-to-end encryption for all calls, and launching Portal internationally. And I'm very excited that this year we're shipping Oculus Rift S and Oculus Quest, the headset that gives you full freedom of movement with no cables. As we build more of our services around this privacy vision, we're also changing how we run our company. We're committed to consulting with experts on the major tradeoffs and social issues to find the best path forward, taking a more active role in making sure developers use our tools in good ways, and building out the technical infrastructure to support this vision. This is going to take time and we don't have all the answers yet, but we're focused on getting this right and doing it openly. I’m looking forward to sharing more with you as we continue on this journey to build a private social platform.
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類似的事件也曾發生在 2016 美國總統大選,後續更牽扯到 Facebook 資安的問題,亦是近幾年探討的議題:社群媒體是否能介入一場大選,甚至干涉他國政治?看似遙遠的英國新聞,其實你我皆身在其中。在資訊的爆炸時代,我們要學會獨立思考的能力,而所看見的,不全然是事實。
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