臺灣人如何監督食品安全 用抗議APP

In a sign of the political mood in Taiwan, the top free application in Apple’s App Store there for much of last week wasn’t a mobile game or a social network, but a tool of protest.

上週很大一部分時間裏，蘋果應用商店在臺灣排名最高的免費應用不是手機遊戲，也不是社交網絡應用，而是一款抗議工具。這是臺灣政治氛圍的一個標誌。

Named Bingdela — after a Taiwanese phrase associated with overturning a table in rage — the software allows users to check whether food or drink products are associated with Ting Hsin International, a conglomerate that last year was the center of a food safety scandal involving its cooking oil.

該應用名爲“冰的啦”，在閩南語裏意爲憤怒地掀桌。用戶可以用它來查看食物或飲料產品是否與頂新國際有關聯。這家企業集團去年爆發了涉及食用油的食品安全醜聞。

Though the app first appeared last year, downloads spiked during the past week after a court in Taiwan ruled that the chairman of Ting Hsin was not guilty of a charge accusing him of violating Taiwan’s food safety law — even though his company knowingly imported products intended for animal feed and used them to make low-quality oil. The app’s creator, Sky Lin, said it had gotten the bulk of its 260,000 downloads during the past two weeks.

雖然該應用最早發佈是在去年，但是上週，在臺灣法院裁定頂新集團主席違反臺灣食品安全法的罪名不成立之後，它的下載量出現了飆升。頂新集團明知進口的這種油品是用於生產動物飼料的，卻仍用它們來生產劣質油。該應用的開發者林亮宇(Sky Lin)表示，它已經被下載26萬次，大量下載出現在過去兩週。

“People couldn’t find a place to vent their anger, and that’s where our product came in to play a role,” said Mr. Lin, who added that he originally made the app not for profit or self-promotion, but instead out of raw political anger.

“人們找不到地方發泄憤怒，而這也正是我們的產品的用武之地，”林先生說。他最初開發這個應用不是爲了賺錢，也不是想宣傳自己，而是出於政治上的強烈憤慨。

The power of social media as an implement of political expression is well known. But Mr. Lin’s product shows how apps can be specifically designed to solve more complicated problems of protests. In this case, widespread calls for boycotts of Ting Hsin’s products proved difficult because the conglomerate has several subsidiaries and sells its oil to other companies for use in their products.

作爲一種政治表達工具，社交媒體的力量是衆所周知的。但林先生的產品顯示了應用可以專門設計用來解決抗議活動中的一些更復雜的問題。在這個案例中，雖然人們廣泛呼籲要抵制頂新的產品，但事實證明要做到這一點相當困難，因爲該集團擁有多家分公司，而且還銷售食用油給其他企業用於生產不同品牌的產品。

The ability to tackle more complex problems gives people the ability to do more in situations where regulators or governments do not do their jobs effectively, according to Mr. Lin.

林先生認爲，遇到監管機構或政府不能有效地做好本職工作的情況，爲公衆提供可以解決更復雜問題的工具，就賦予了他們做更多事情的能力。

“There are structural issues creating these types of food safety problems in Taiwan. It’s a deeper issue with Taiwanese law and government. It’s not an isolated case. We have seen it happen again and again,” he said.

“臺灣有一些結構性弊端造成了這種食品安全問題。這是臺灣法律和政府的一個深層問題。它不是一個孤立事件。我們看到這種事情在接二連三地發生，”他說。

Mr. Lin said he expected more of this type of protest to come to the fore in Taiwan as activists gain stronger programming abilities. He and his team, who normally work on an app that is a guide to Taiwan’s bars, were able to create the protest app in just two weeks, mostly by reusing code they had already developed.

林先生表示，隨着活動人士的編程能力日益增強，他預計臺灣會涌現出更多的這類抗議軟件。他和團隊的本職工作是經營一個臺灣酒吧指南應用。他們主要通過回用以前代碼的方式，在短短兩週內開發出了這個抗議應用。

The most labor-intensive part, according to Mr. Lin, was researching the products linked to Ting Hsin and photographing them to assemble a graphical database of items that should be flagged. Friends pitched in to provide other photos and research.

林先生說，在整個項目中，人力需求最密集的部分是研究哪些產品和頂新集團有關聯，然後給它們拍照，輸入到一個可疑產品的圖形數據庫中。朋友們熱心地爲團隊提供了其他一些照片和研究結果。

With the app now doing well, a new question facing Mr. Lin is whether to fund it.

這個應用現在表現不錯，但林先生面臨着如何爲其提供資金的新問題。

“The second day after it happened, I was contacted by an advertising agent, and they argued that we’ll need advertising if we want long-term development. But for me personally, I don’t want to see ads when using this app,” he said.

“發佈後的第二天，有一家廣告代理聯繫我，說如果我們想長期發展的話，就需要投放廣告。但在我個人來說，我不希望在使用這個應用的時候看到廣告，”他說。

Offers for sponsorships have also come in, but Mr. Lin said those, too, were problematic, because large sums from different organizations or companies could ultimately compromise the fairness of the app down the line.

也有一些贊助商表示願意提供資金，但林先生認爲這樣做也會有問題，因爲來自不同組織或公司的大筆資金最終可能會產生影響，危及應用的公平性。

Mr. Lin is still trying to figure out what to do with Bingdela. Some have suggested that his team should add other brands that have had past issues, but he said that for now he was still trying to figure out how to round up funding.

林先生仍在考慮“冰的啦”的未來。有些人認爲，他的團隊應該把過去有過醜聞的其他品牌也添加進來，但他表示，目前他仍在考慮獲得資金的方式。

“We have received a lot of encouragement, some of which actually were quite touching. It gave me the motivation to do more. My wife said, ‘That’s not your expertise.’ I think Taiwan needs such a platform to do this, whether it be the government or a nongovernment entity. We need this to fundamentally fix some damages caused by economic development,” he said.

“我們收到了大量鼓勵，有些的確相當感人。這讓我有了做更多事情的動力。我太太說，‘這不是你的專長。’我覺得臺灣需要有這樣一個平臺來做這個，無論是政府還是非政府機構。我們需要這個來從根本上修復經濟發展帶來的一些損害，”他說。