Artificial intelligence (AI) is needed more than ever to combat disinformation as it becomes more prevalent on video-based platforms such as YouTube and TikTok than in text-based formats, a Taiwanese expert said during an international panel discussion on Thursday.
Taiwan AI Labs founder Ethan Tu (杜奕瑾) said that his company found a rise in troll accounts in the run-up to Taiwan’s presidential and legislative elections that disseminated false information using short videos and that AI tools were used to identify the accounts.
Tu was speaking at a livestream event held by the Institute of Global Politics at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs on how AI tools have changed the information ecosystem and how governments and the public would respond to new challenges.
Photo: Reuters
His company observed a large amount of coordinated activity on social media platforms such as Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter), Professional Technology Temple bulletin board system and TikTok ahead of Taiwan’s elections in January, he said.
They “appeared together and disappeared together,” which is a clear sign of coordinated activity that is characteristic of troll groups, Tu said.
Troll accounts are “referencing short videos now,” a different approach to spreading information from using text, which was their preferred method in the past, he said, adding that the deepfake videos on platforms such as YouTube and TikTok used different backgrounds and voices, but trumpeted the same narratives.
“We used AI speech recognition and language understanding tools to identify the troll accounts and cluster the stories they were trying to spread,” Tu said.
There have been peaks of troll activity when events with political significance take place, such as President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) visit to the US in April last year and when US President Joe Biden said the US would defend Taiwan if China attacked, he added.
When asked by moderator Anya Schiffrin — senior lecturer on international affairs at Columbia University — whether China could be identified as the source of the troll activity, Tu said it could, adding: “By using AI and grouping the same narratives together, we found that the troll accounts on social media platforms echoed the narratives of China’s state-affiliated media.”
Many of the troll accounts “try to emphasize China’s military strength,” suggesting a link to China, he said.
The panel discussion also touched on regulations in place to monitor disinformation on social media platforms and the difficulties content moderation entailed.
Tu said that in Taiwan’s case, fact checking and content moderation would face a lot of challenges, because “people would say that was against freedom of speech and there would be debate over what ‘fact’ is in fact checking.”
So, instead of fact checking or content moderation, Taiwan now focuses more on information manipulation disclosure, he said.
Taipei and New Taipei City government officials are aiming to have the first phase of the Wanhua-Jungho-Shulin Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) line completed and opened by 2027, following the arrival of the first train set yesterday. The 22km-long Light Green Line would connect four densely populated districts in Taipei and New Taipei City: Wanhua (萬華), Jhonghe (中和), Tucheng (土城) and Shulin (樹林). The first phase of the project would connect Wanhua and Jhonghe districts, with Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and Chukuang (莒光) being the terminal stations. The two municipalities jointly hosted a ceremony for the first train to be used
MILITARY AID: Taiwan has received a first batch of US long-range tactical missiles ahead of schedule, with a second shipment expected to be delivered by 2026 The US’ early delivery of long-range tactical ballistic missiles to Taiwan last month carries political and strategic significance, a military source said yesterday. According to the Ministry of National Defense’s budget report, the batch of military hardware from the US, including 11 sets of M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and 64 MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems, had been scheduled to be delivered to Taiwan between the end of this year and the beginning of next year. However, the first batch arrived last month, earlier than scheduled, with the second batch —18 sets of HIMARS, 20 MGM-140 missiles and 864 M30
Representative to the US Alexander Yui delivered a letter from the government to US president-elect Donald Trump during a meeting with a former Trump administration official, CNN reported yesterday. Yui on Thursday met with former US national security adviser Robert O’Brien over a private lunch in Salt Lake City, Utah, with US Representative Chris Stewart, the Web site of the US cable news channel reported, citing three sources familiar with the matter. “During that lunch the letter was passed along, and then shared with Trump, two of the sources said,” CNN said. O’Brien declined to comment on the lunch, as did the Taipei
A woman who allegedly attacked a high-school student with a utility knife, injuring his face, on a Taipei metro train late on Friday has been transferred to prosecutors, police said yesterday. The incident occurred near MRT Xinpu Station at about 10:17pm on a Bannan Line train headed toward Dingpu, New Taipei City police said. Before police arrived at the station to arrest the suspect, a woman surnamed Wang (王) who is in her early 40s, she had already been subdued by four male passengers, one of whom was an off-duty Taipei police officer, police said. The student, 17, who sustained a cut about
RSS