The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end.
An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government.
A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens.
Photo courtesy of a participant at the concert
The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS group, they said.
The department provided a copy of a TVBS apology letter over the misstep, saying that workers forgot to unplug a backup laptop belonging to the projector’s subcontractor during the screen’s deactivation.
The unattended device — playing YouTube with the autoplay option turned on — was connected to the projector for the screen, the group said in the apology letter.
TVBS expresses the “deepest regret for the upset the incident had caused,” and would conduct a review of its operating procedures with hardware subcontractors to prevent mistakes from happening again, it said.
“The responsibility for playing CCTV at Taipei’s New Year’s Eve event cannot be shifted by casting blame on YouTube autoplay,” Democratic Progressive Party Taipei City Councilor Chang Wen-chieh (張文潔) said.
Members of the public feel that the mistake was tantamount to the city government doing China’s “united front” work for it, she said, citing calls to her office in the early hours of yesterday.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Tseng Hsien-ying (曾獻瑩) said the incident should be a reminder for the city government to be careful in handling large-scale events.
“The city should impress on its contractors that they must take particular care to prevent such mistakes,” he said.
Separately, the Freeway Bureau acknowledged “inappropriate behavior” by its personnel following reports that multiple cameras on National Freeway No. 1 on New Year’s Eve had turned to look at the fireworks at Taipei 101 from the road.
Lee Jih-chin (李日錦), head of the bureau’s northern traffic control center, said the operators assigned to seven cameras on the freeway’s Yuanshan section turned away from observing traffic.
Camera operators are supposed to watch the fireworks as a factor that could impact traffic, but the number of devices utilized was clearly excessive, he said, adding that disciplinary measures would be taken.
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
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The lowest temperature in a low-lying area recorded early yesterday morning was in Miaoli County’s Gongguan Township (公館), at 6.8°C, due to a strong cold air mass and the effect of radiative cooling, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. In other areas, Chiayi’s East District (東區) recorded a low of 8.2°C and Yunlin County’s Huwei Township (虎尾) recorded 8.5°C, CWA data showed. The cold air mass was at its strongest from Saturday night to the early hours of yesterday. It brought temperatures down to 9°C to 11°C in areas across the nation and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties,
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