The National Communications Commission’s (NCC) draft digital services act is an attempt to control freedom of expression and would make the free, democratic Republic of China an autocratic state, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said yesterday.
The draft act, which the council approved last week, would impose levels of obligations on five categories of large online platforms.
It would also establish special provisions for platforms that have more than 2.3 million domestic users — which would include YouTube, Facebook, Yahoo Auctions and DCard — with contraventions of the rules to draw fines of up to NT$10 million (US$335,965).
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiang, Taipei Times
However, KMT lawmakers accused the NCC of losing sight of its purpose.
KMT caucus convener William Tseng (曾銘宗) said that since Chen Yaw-shyang (陳耀祥) became NCC chairman, the “supposedly independent organization has become an affiliate organization of the Democratic Progressive Party.”
KMT Legislator Lee Kui-min (李貴敏) said that the draft act was, in effect, a government plan to control freedom of expression.
The NCC’s record — from denying a CTi News license renewal to fining Chinese Television System — shows that it is no longer acting in a neutral and independent capacity, Lee said.
While the draft act says that any oversight or investigative measures taken against digital media must receive judicial approval, the clause allowing the council to demand that platforms add a 30-day “warning label” to potentially offending posts — which would include whistle-blower accounts — before a court ruling is an overreach of the administrative branch, she said.
“While Taiwan has separation of five powers, in spirit, it has separation of three powers — the administrative branch cannot supersede the judiciary or the legislative branches,” she said.
The draft act’s main purpose is to empower the government to demand digital providers remove posts that the government considers to be “untrue” once a court ruling has ratified the accusation, KMT Legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) said.
This would allow the government to control any Internet platform that has a market share of more that 10 percent, which no democratic and free country should do, Lai said.
It is sad that Taiwan would willingly follow in the footsteps of communist autocratic states, he said, adding that it would become a quasi-communist state with such a law on the books.
Lai panned a clause that would authorize the NCC to donate NT$2.5 billion (US$83.99 million) to create a non-department public body tasked with policing false information.
This is an obvious ploy to create an agency that empowers Internet users to propagate pro-government news and statements, he said.
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