Despite repeated threats that he would file a lawsuit against National Tsing Hua University student Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷) over an image posted on Facebook, China Times Weekly deputy editor-in-chief Lin Chao-hsin (林朝鑫) had yet to act on his threat yesterday, while Chen said he was ready to defend freedom of speech on the Internet.
“Instead of finding out the truth about the ‘walking fee incident,’ Want Want China Times Media Group chose to [threaten to] file a lawsuit against a college student for posting an image on Facebook,” Chen told a news conference in Taipei yesterday morning. “The lawsuit is not only against me, it’s against all netizens, and Taiwanese civil society.”
Chen was referring to a lawsuit that Lin has repeatedly vowed to bring against him for posting a snapshot of a CTiTV news report of a student protest against the merger of Want Want and cable TV service provider China Network Systems (CNS) on Wednesday.
Photo: Chen Ping-hung, Taipei Times
On Friday, Want Want Group’s media outlets — the Chinese--language China Times, China Times Weekly and CTiTV — all reported that the student crowd was paid to stage the protest, and implied, without providing evidence, that Academia Sinica research fellow Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), who organized a separate protest earlier, was behind the incident.
Netizens took a snapshot from the CTiTV report on the protest that showed Lin among the crowd and questioned whether the media group was actually the one behind it.
Although Chen was only one of the hundreds of netizens who posted the image online, Lin seems to believe that Chen was the person who originally produced the image, since he was quoted by the China Times yesterday as saying that Chen was the person who took the photograph.
“Most of the people opposed to the merger of Want Want and CNS feel that way because they worry that a media giant ... threatens the freedoms of the press and of speech,” Chen said. “What Lin and the media group have been doing these past few days just proves that our worries are not baseless.”
“As a mere student, I feel helpless, but I’m determined to fight on, not only for myself, but also for freedom of speech on the Internet,” Chen said.
Lin said in a telephone interview that he would sue Chen to defend his reputation. Although he originally said he would file the lawsuit against Chen because he believed Chen was the one who took the snapshot, Lin later said that Chen was not his ultimate target.
“The purpose of the lawsuit is not to do something against a student, rather, it is to find out who’s behind the entire incident,” he said.
Lin told media that he would file the lawsuit at 2pm. As of press time, he had yet to file anything.
Conflict with Taiwan could leave China with “massive economic disruption, catastrophic military losses, significant social unrest, and devastating sanctions,” a US think tank said in a report released on Monday. The German Marshall Fund released a report titled If China Attacks Taiwan: The Consequences for China of “Minor Conflict” and “Major War” Scenarios. The report details the “massive” economic, military, social and international costs to China in the event of a minor conflict or major war with Taiwan, estimating that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could sustain losses of more than half of its active-duty ground forces, including 100,000 troops. Understanding Chinese
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday said it is closely monitoring developments in Venezuela, and would continue to cooperate with democratic allies and work together for regional and global security, stability, and prosperity. The remarks came after the US on Saturday launched a series of airstrikes in Venezuela and kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who was later flown to New York along with his wife. The pair face US charges related to drug trafficking and alleged cooperation with gangs designated as terrorist organizations. Maduro has denied the allegations. The ministry said that it is closely monitoring the political and economic situation
‘SLICING METHOD’: In the event of a blockade, the China Coast Guard would intercept Taiwanese ships while its navy would seek to deter foreign intervention China’s military drills around Taiwan this week signaled potential strategies to cut the nation off from energy supplies and foreign military assistance, a US think tank report said. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) conducted what it called “Justice Mission 2025” exercises from Monday to Tuesday in five maritime zones and airspace around Taiwan, calling them a warning to “Taiwanese independence” forces. In a report released on Wednesday, the Institute for the Study of War said the exercises effectively simulated blocking shipping routes to major port cities, including Kaohsiung, Keelung and Hualien. Taiwan would be highly vulnerable under such a blockade, because it
UNRELENTING: China attempted cyberattacks on Taiwan’s critical infrastructure 2.63 million times per day last year, up from 1.23 million in 2023, the NSB said China’s cyberarmy has long engaged in cyberattacks against Taiwan’s critical infrastructure, employing diverse and evolving tactics, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said yesterday, adding that cyberattacks on critical energy infrastructure last year increased 10-fold compared with the previous year. The NSB yesterday released a report titled Analysis on China’s Cyber Threats to Taiwan’s Critical Infrastructure in 2025, outlining the number of cyberattacks, major tactics and hacker groups. Taiwan’s national intelligence community identified a large number of cybersecurity incidents last year, the bureau said in a statement. China’s cyberarmy last year launched an average of 2.63 million intrusion attempts per day targeting Taiwan’s critical
RSS