Can Facebook help bring a country to its knees?
Look to France for a nationwide experiment, real time.
Thanks to the combustable combination of Facebook savvy high school students (lycéens) and anti-pension protests, French strikes just entered a new dimension. Protesters--especially young ones--can now organize at high speed.
Technically it's no different from any other happening. Party, concert, whatever. Only the purpose is different. The Facebook Flashmob just got political.
How does it work?
Anyone --student, union activist, politician--can set up a special Facebook group to coordinate a protest.
An "event" is created (demonstration, blockade, sit in...) and invitations are sent to "friends".
Some organisations have even used Facebook messages to diffuse instructions on how to block schools.
But like with Frankenstein, there's a problem.
Facebook is, like twitter and SMS, a technology of chaos: decentralization, instant communication, no control.
Political parties and unions are, however, centralized power structures.
They wanted reinforcements and called in the young, thinking to control them. But can they? All bets are off...
