Authorities have accused Chinese Internet trolls of sowing panic over COVID-19, with much of the disinformation falsely implying that the nation has an out-of-control epidemic.
Police said that they are investigating a surge in stories spreading online and through social media claiming that President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration is trying to cover up an outbreak.
“We suspect that Chinese Internet trolls are making up and spreading the false messages based on the content and the phrases,” the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau said in a statement late on Wednesday.
“The intent is to cause misunderstanding among the public and to sow panic to seriously jeopardize our social stability,” it added.
Tsai took to Facebook to warn people against believing rumors.
While she did not mention China by name, she hinted at linguistic clues suggesting that much of the misinformation was being written outside of Taiwan.
“Some of the rumors even contain phrases not used in Taiwan,” she wrote.
The nation moved swiftly against the virus, quickly restricting and then banning arrivals from China, Hong Kong and Macau.
The outbreak in China has only added to tensions between Taiwan and China.
The nation has long been a target for Chinese nationalist Internet trolls seeking to undermine public faith in Tsai’s administration.
Analysts have said that trolls have gotten better over the past few years at deploying traditional Chinese and Taiwanese phrasing, but much of the misinformation on the virus appears to be more rudimentary.
One example given by the bureau was a false social media message claiming to be written by the child of a Democratic Progressive Party legislator, saying that Taipei “dares not disclose more than 500 infections and 200 deaths.”
Another false message claimed that the administration of “Governor Tsai” — a term used by people in China to refer to the president — is covering up the cremation of bodies, the bureau said.
The Taiwan FactCheck Center — an independent organization that debunks misinformation — said that there has been a surge in false posts deploying simplified Chinese characters or phrases commonly used in China.
“New variants of such disinformation keep coming out to spread falsehoods in an attempt to create panic,” the center wrote. “We urge readers not to forward these messages, but to verify and discredit them.”
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS