A “new wave of disinformation” is heading across the Strait before the presidential election in January as Taiwan tries to combat China’s ever-shifting and increasingly subtle disinformation tactics, the New York Times reported.
Boasting “a resilience to foreign meddling that could serve as a model to the dozens of other democracies holding votes in 2024,” Taiwan “is ready for the disinformation onslaught” from China, the report said.
Taiwan has “one of the world’s most mature” communities of fact-checkers, government investments, international media literacy partnerships and a public sense of skepticism, it said.
Photo: I-Hwa Cheng, Bloomberg
“The challenge now is sustaining the effort,” it quoted Minister of Digital Affairs Audrey Tang (唐鳳) as saying.
Tang added that Taiwan now needs to “stay agile.”
Beijing’s efforts, such as criticizing Taiwan’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and launching cyberattacks when then-US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan last year, “has struggled to sway public opinion,” it said.
Operations including the Taiwan FactCheck Center, Fake News Cleaner, Cofacts, Doublethink Lab and MyGoPen are providing fact-checking to help citizens ward off Beijing’s disinformation campaign, it said.
Many Taiwanese have developed internal “warning bells” for suspicious narratives, Fake News Cleaner cofounder Melody Hsieh (謝呈釀) said.
However, some fact-checkers and watchdog groups warned against “public apathy” towards fact-checking, the resources of which were not widely used in past elections, it said.
In addition, posts originating from China “appear increasingly subtle and organic, rather than flooding the zone with obvious pro-Beijing messages.”
Content farms under Beijing’s control might create false information, which would then be spread by agents, bots or unwitting social media users, it said.
Other tactics used by Beijing include buying established Taiwanese social media accounts and paying Taiwanese influencers to promote pro-China narratives, the report cited research from the RAND Corp as saying.
The Chinese disinformation campaign also shifted its focus from the relations between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait to Taiwan’s domestic issues to provoke social division, such as “spreading lies about local services and health issues,” it said.
In comparison to the last presidential election in 2020, Beijing is “no longer distracted by pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong” and can take better advantage of artificial intelligence, such as creating deep fake videos or images, it said.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) previously said that cracking down on disinformation is one of the “most difficult challenges for democracies” and requires “a whole-of-society effort.”
Civil society groups yesterday protested outside the Legislative Yuan, decrying Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) efforts to pass three major bills that they said would seriously harm Taiwan’s democracy, and called to oust KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁). It was the second night of the three-day “Bluebird wintertime action” protests in Taipei, with organizers announcing that 8,000 people attended. Organized by Taiwan Citizen Front, the Economic Democracy Union (EDU) and a coalition of civil groups, about 6,000 people began a demonstration in front of KMT party headquarters in Taipei on Wednesday, organizers said. For the third day, the organizers asked people to assemble
Taipei is participating in Osaka’s Festival of Lights this year, with a 3m-tall bubble tea light installation symbolizing Taiwan’s bubble tea culture. The installation is designed as a bubble tea cup and features illustrations of Taipei’s iconic landmarks, such as Taipei 101, the Red House and North Gate, as well as soup dumplings and the matchmaking deity the Old Man Under the Moon (月下老人), affectionately known as Yue Lao (月老). Taipei and Osaka have collaborated closely on tourism and culture since Taipei first participated in the festival in 2018, the Taipei City Department of Information and Tourism said. In February, Osaka represented
Taiwanese professional baseball should update sports stadiums and boost engagement to enhance fans’ experience, Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) commissioner Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) in an interview on Friday. The league has urged Farglory Group and the Taipei City Government to improve the Taipei Dome’s outdated equipment, including relatively rudimentary television and sound systems, and poor technology, he said. The Tokyo Dome has markedly better television and sound systems, despite being 30 years old, because its managers continually upgraded its equipment, Tsai said. In contrast, the Taipei Dome lacked even a room for referees
POOR IMPLEMENTATION: Teachers welcomed the suspension, saying that the scheme disrupted school schedules, quality of learning and the milk market A policy to offer free milk to all school-age children nationwide is to be suspended next year due to multiple problems arising from implementation of the policy, the Executive Yuan announced yesterday. The policy was designed to increase the calcium intake of school-age children in Taiwan by drinking milk, as more than 80 percent drink less than 240ml per day. The recommended amount is 480ml. It was also implemented to help Taiwanese dairy farmers counter competition from fresh milk produced in New Zealand, which is to be imported to Taiwan tariff-free next year when the Agreement Between New Zealand and
RSS