Taiwan was last year the most targeted country by foreign governments spreading false information for the ninth consecutive year, a study released this month showed.
The nation was followed by Latvia and Palestine as a target for false information spread by foreign governments, the Sweden-based Varieties of Democracy Institute-affiliated Digital Society Project reported in its latest report.
The governments of Turkmenistan, North Korea and Myanmar were the world’s most significant spreaders of false information, while China and Russia were ranked sixth and 12th respectively, the study showed.
The volume of disinformation being circulated has multiplied with “fake news” increasingly becoming a tool of autocratic states for manipulating public opinion at home and abroad, it said.
False information has contributed to the polarization of public opinion, with the Middle East, North Africa and Asia Pacific being the regions most affected by false information, it said.
Autocracies fell further behind democracies in informational transparency and reliability after making widespread use of false data about economic growth and COVID-19 in a bid to burnish their international and domestic image, it said.
Autocracies have also clamped down on Internet freedoms to control public access to information, making their societies more reliant on government sources than before, it added.
Although false information being spread by foreign sources in Taiwan can be identified, their exact origin is not known, said Wang Yi-ting (王奕婷), one of the study’s researchers and an associate professor of political science at National Cheng Kung University.
China is one of the countries known to make extensive use of internal and external propaganda, she added.
Chen Chih-wei (陳志瑋), an associate professor of public administration at Tamkang University, yesterday said that combating disinformation is increasingly becoming an important issue for public health, safety and national security.
The government should treat the spread of false information surrounding the war in Ukraine as an opportunity to educate people on fact-checking the stories they read, he said.
Additionally, enhancing ties among law enforcement, national security and private groups such as the Taiwan FactCheck Center can help in identifying false information sources and mitigating harm, he said.
Tseng Kuan-chiu (曾冠球), a professor of civic education and leadership at National Taiwan Normal University, said that most people are likely uninterested in reading fact-checker sites.
Significant resources would have to be devoted to cultivating news and digital literacy through public education to “inoculate” people against fake news, he added.
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