The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) yesterday said it would pursue legal action against people who allegedly fabricated and disseminated a recording of TPP Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) commenting on Vice President William Lai’s (賴清德) stopovers in the US.
Some media outlets on Wednesday evening received an e-mail with a 36-second audio recording purporting to show “Ko expose the inside story of Lai’s visits to the US.”
In the recording, someone who sounds like Ko, the TPP’s presidential candidate, criticizes Lai, the DPP’s presidential candidate, for his stopovers in New York and San Francisco this month, as he visited Paraguay, and alleges that each person could receive NT$800 for attending Lai’s events.
Photo courtesy of the Taiwan People’s Party
The e-mail said that the recording was made during an internal TPP meeting in the first week of this month.
At a news conference yesterday, TPP spokesman Adam Lee (李頂立) said the voice in the recording was “clearly not Ko.”
The TPP would pursue legal action, but is first investigating who made the recording, how it was made and who disseminated it, he said.
It is also hoped that campaigning would “go back to being clean and transparent,” as people are “sick of mud-slinging,” Lee added.
Lee said that the recording was clearly intended to defame Ko and mislead the public.
Asked about the recording, Ko yesterday, during a visit to Taiwan Cement Corp in Hualien County, said that strange stories are becoming more frequent as the election nears and the use of artificial intelligence (AI) that can imitate people’s voices and appearance makes things worse.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) deputy secretary-general Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) said the party hopes the recording was fabricated as the TPP claimed and urged Ko’s office to file a lawsuit against the perpetrators as soon as possible.
If investigated through legal channels, it would show that all political parties — not just the one in power — are affected by misinformation, he said.
By uniting against misinformation and Chinese aggression, the parties can protect the democracy and security that Taiwanese hold dear, he said.
This is not just a case of fake news, but “the beginning of cyberterrorism,” DPP caucus director Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said.
AI-generated and altered media are to become more common, posing an enormous challenge to Taiwan’s democratic society, she said.
Everyone must work to counter misinformation to ensure the stability of elections, Liu added.
Additional reporting by Chen Cheng-yu and Hua Meng-ching
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
RESPONSE: The government would investigate incidents of Taiwanese entertainers in China promoting CCP propaganda online in contravention of the law, the source said Taiwanese entertainers living in China who are found to have contravened cross-strait regulations or collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could be subject to fines, a source said on Sunday. Several Taiwanese entertainers have posted on the social media platform Sina Weibo saying that Taiwan “must be returned” to China, and sharing news articles from Chinese state media. In response, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has asked the Ministry of Culture to investigate whether the entertainers had contravened any laws, and asked for them to be questioned upon their return to Taiwan, an official familiar with the matter said. To curb repeated
Myanmar has turned down an offer of assistance from Taiwanese search-and-rescue teams after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck the nation on Friday last week, saying other international aid is sufficient, the National Fire Agency said yesterday. More than 1,700 have been killed and 3,400 injured in the quake that struck near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay early on Friday afternoon, followed minutes later by a magnitude 6.7 aftershock. Worldwide, 13 international search-and-rescue teams have been deployed, with another 13 teams mobilizing, the agency said. Taiwan’s search-and-rescue teams were on standby, but have since been told to stand down, as