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.

上周很大一部分时间里，苹果应用商店在台湾排名最高的免费应用不是手机游戏，也不是社交网络应用，而是一款抗议工具。这是台湾政治氛围的一个标志。

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.

该应用名为“冰的啦”，在闽南语里意为愤怒地掀桌。用户可以用它来查看食物或饮料产品是否与顶新国际有关联。这家企业集团去年爆发了涉及食用油的食品安全丑闻。

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.

虽然该应用最早发布是在去年，但是上周，在台湾法院裁定顶新集团主席违反台湾食品安全法的罪名不成立之后，它的下载量出现了飙升。顶新集团明知进口的这种油品是用于生产动物饲料的，却仍用它们来生产劣质油。该应用的开发者林亮宇(Sky Lin)表示，它已经被下载26万次，大量下载出现在过去两周。

“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 Lin, who added that he originally made the app not for profit or self-promotion, but instead out of raw political anger.

“人们找不到地方发泄愤怒，而这也正是我们的产品的用武之地，”林先生说。他最初开发这个应用不是为了赚钱，也不是想宣传自己，而是出于政治上的强烈愤慨。

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.

作为一种政治表达工具，社交媒体的力量是众所周知的。但林先生的产品显示了应用可以专门设计用来解决抗议活动中的一些更复杂的问题。在这个案例中，虽然人们广泛呼吁要抵制顶新的产品，但事实证明要做到这一点相当困难，因为该集团拥有多家分公司，而且还销售食用油给其他企业用于生产不同品牌的产品。

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.

林先生认为，遇到监管机构或政府不能有效地做好本职工作的情况，为公众提供可以解决更复杂问题的工具，就赋予了他们做更多事情的能力。

“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.

“台湾有一些结构性弊端造成了这种食品安全问题。这是台湾法律和政府的一个深层问题。它不是一个孤立事件。我们看到这种事情在接二连三地发生，”他说。

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，随着活动人士的编程能力日益增强，他预计台湾会涌现出更多的这类抗议软件。他和团队的本职工作是经营一个台湾酒吧指南应用。他们主要通过回用以前代码的方式，在短短两周内开发出了这个抗议应用。

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.

林先生说，在整个项目中，人力需求最密集的部分是研究哪些产品和顶新集团有关联，然后给它们拍照，输入到一个可疑产品的图形数据库中。朋友们热心地为团队提供了其他一些照片和研究结果。

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

这个应用现在表现不错，但林先生面临着如何为其提供资金的新问题。

“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.

“发布后的第二天，有一家广告代理联系我，说如果我们想长期发展的话，就需要投放广告。但在我个人来说，我不希望在使用这个应用的时候看到广告，”他说。

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.

也有一些赞助商表示愿意提供资金，但林先生认为这样做也会有问题，因为来自不同组织或公司的大笔资金最终可能会产生影响，危及应用的公平性。

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.

林先生仍在考虑“冰的啦”的未来。有些人认为，他的团队应该把过去有过丑闻的其他品牌也添加进来，但他表示，目前他仍在考虑获得资金的方式。

“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.

“我们收到了大量鼓励，有些的确相当感人。这让我有了做更多事情的动力。我太太说，‘这不是你的专长。’我觉得台湾需要有这样一个平台来做这个，无论是政府还是非政府机构。我们需要这个来从根本上修复经济发展带来的一些损害，”他说。