Skip to content
Sunday, 15 November 2026Malta edition Enquire Malta-24 Briefing @CDNewsDispatch
Malta's world news feed Local perspective with global outlook
CDE.NEWS The Dispatch
Enquire
LATEST
World e-Parliament Conference returns to European Parliament after 18 years 354 dark web vendors and buyers arrested in Europol-coordinated global crackdown Malta’s Financial Sector Urged To Help Finance The Country’s Next Chapter Microsoft Outage Explained: Causes, Impact and Potential Risks to User Data Vance, Rubio, Ossoff and Buttigieg lead 2028 White House hopefuls

Yellow Jackets protest movement led to ‘explosion’ of false and misleading news

cde.news desk · 2 min read
Xinf
epaselect epa07443411 Protesters from the 'Gilets Jaunes' (Yellow Vests) stand amid smoke on the Champs Elysees during the 'Act XVIII' demonstration (the 18th consecutive national protest on a Saturday) in Paris, France, 16 March 2019. The so-called 'gilets jaunes' (yellow vests) is a grassroots protest movement with supporters from a wide span of the political spectrum, that originally started with protest across the nation in late 2018 against high fuel prices. The movement in the meantime also protests the French government's tax reforms, the increasing costs of living and some even call for the resignation of French President Emmanuel Macron. EPA-EFE/JULIEN DE ROSA

France’s Yellow Jackets protest movement led to an explosion of false or misleading news items circulating on Facebook, with posts shared some 4 million times over a five-month period, according to a study of social media activity during the protests.

The analysis, carried out by researchers for the Avaaz activist network, showed that the top 100 false posts flagged by fact-checkers had been viewed a total of 105 million times on the social network over the period, which stretched from November last year to this month.

The study also underscored the unparalleled popularity of RT coverage of the movement on YouTube, with video posts produced by the Kremlin-backed news outlet gathering more than 20 million views on the Google-owned platform — more than twice as many views as Le Monde, L’Obs, France 24, Le Figaro and LeHuffPost combined.

According to Christoph Schott, who coordinated the research together with Luca Nicotra, the results show how “lies” designed to grab attention spread much further on platforms than factual reporting, facilitated by algorithms that encourage users to share and engage with popular content.

“It’s easier to tell lies than truth in a very compelling manner,” said Schott. “It’s much harder to come up with a factual headline that goes viral than a false one, and the people who are producing this stuff know what they are doing — they use the platform to create viral effects.”

Via Politico

Topics FacebookFake NewsFranceYellow Vests