Results from an online survey indicate that “fake news” reports had the potential to influence voters’ decisions in the Nov. 24 local elections last year, especially among young women with low incomes, a National Taiwan University academic said.
The survey, conducted by Wang Tai-Li (王泰俐), a professor at the Graduate Institute of Journalism, asked respondents to assess the authenticity of six false news reports widely circulated last year, Wang said yesterday.
The reports included one falsely claiming that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) was unwilling to leave an armored vehicle in Chiayi to inspect damage caused by flooding in August; a report that the government was planning to lease Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島) to the US armed forces; and one that said the Chinese embassy had sent tour buses to Osaka’s Kansai International Airport to evacuate Chinese and Taiwanese passengers following Typhoon Jebi, Wang said.
Photo: CNA
About half of the respondents were unable to tell whether the reports were true, she said.
Supporters of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) tended to be better at identifying false reports, but independent voters and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) supporters did not perform as well, she said.
Among female respondents, 49.15 percent were unable to identify the reports as false, compared with 28.5 percent of men, Wang cited the survey as showing.
The ability to identify false reports differed with age, Wang said.
Among voters aged 20 to 30, 43.5 percent were able to identify them, while it was 59.6 percent among 50-to-59-year-olds and 55 percent for those aged 60 or over, she said.
One reason younger voters might be more susceptible to false news could be that they spend more time on social media, where it most often circulates, Wang said.
The first version of a story that people read tends to leave the strongest impression, she said, adding that they will ignore clarifications that follow.
Educational background does not appear to be an indicator of a person’s susceptibility to false reports, she said.
Among respondents with a monthly income between NT$50,000 and NT$100,000, 61 percent were able to identify false reports, while it was 37 percent among those with a monthly income under NT$10,000, Wang said.
Respondents in Taichung, and Changhua and Nantou counties were least able to identify false news, followed by those in Taoyuan, and Hsinchu and Miaoli counties, she added.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
China’s newest Type-076 amphibious assault ship has two strengths and weaknesses, wrote a Taiwanese defense expert, adding that further observations of its capabilities are warranted. Jiang Hsin-biao (江炘杓), an assistant researcher at the National Defense and Security Research, made the comments in a report recently published by the institute about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) military and political development. China christened its new assault ship Sichuan in a ceremony on Dec. 27 last year at Shanghai’s Hudong Shipyard, China’s Xinhua news agency reported. “The vessel, described as the world’s largest amphibious assault ship by the [US think tank] Center for Strategic and International
RSS