The National Communications Commission (NCC) has in the past few weeks come under fire over a draft digital communications bill that would allow it to regulate online platforms. Opposition parties have lambasted the NCC — and the administration of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) — accusing them of suppressing free speech.
However, the NCC is arguably attempting to adapt to changing circumstances.
An article published by the Taipei Times on Nov. 12 cited NCC statistics showing that only 4.89 million households were subscribed to cable TV in the third quarter, down from previous quarters. Increasingly, people are consuming content through online platforms such as YouTube, Netflix and other paid subscription services. An article published on July 16 said that Chinese platform iQiyi has 6 million subscribers in Taiwan, despite operating in the nation illegally. Given this trend toward online media consumption, the NCC must adapt and regulate content through streaming services, in the same way that it regulates radio and television content.
The purpose of regulating online content would be to prevent political agencies, domestic and foreign, from disseminating propaganda or disinformation to sway public opinion or cause social unrest. It would also prevent minors from consuming content that is unsuitable for them, such as violence or sexual content, and prevent online slander or defamation, among other illegal acts. Regardless of whether such regulation is necessary, it is inevitable that opposition parties would seize upon the draft, as it is an opportunity to paint the government as authoritarian, which is precisely what the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) did during a news conference on Dec. 15.
Therefore, it is particularly important for the Tsai administration, and the NCC, to be as transparent and articulate as possible in introducing such legislation, and to be open to communication with the public. The wording of the act is also very important. Presenting it as a bill that targets content that “harms national interests or public order” is too vague, and targeting content that contravenes “good morals” is irrelevant. “Morals” should not be the concern of the government, nor should safeguarding public morals be the basis of any law.
Then there is the issue of how the act is to be implemented. The NCC has suggested that content providers would only need to register if their number of users, revenue, traffic volume or market influence reached a certain level. That would be like saying that a drunk bus driver would only be prosecuted if they had a certain number of passengers. The law, if enacted, should apply to all content providers. Essentially, if the NCC requires any entity that produces online content to register, then all of them should need to register, even if nobody watches their content. Aside from that, there should be no real difference between a digital communications act and the existing laws for radio and television content.
The government should also allay concerns that the act is about quashing dissenting voices. Any content under investigation for contravening the law should be reviewed by an independent body, ideally one with cross-party members, or people free of political affiliation. Preferably, all opposition parties would also have a say in such an act, because it is in the public’s interest for there to be a wide consensus on what is essentially a law aimed at protecting the nation from harmful foreign influence.
Laws must evolve, and this is the juncture where it has become important to regulate content broadcast online. The NCC already proposed such an act in 2018, but lawmakers shut it down over free-speech concerns. However, if certain things are not allowed on television, it hardly makes sense that they would be allowed on an over-the-top service. The Internet is the new television and radio, and lawmakers must realize that and adapt to the times.
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) trip to China provides a pertinent reminder of why Taiwanese protested so vociferously against attempts to force through the cross-strait service trade agreement in 2014 and why, since Ma’s presidential election win in 2012, they have not voted in another Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate. While the nation narrowly avoided tragedy — the treaty would have put Taiwan on the path toward the demobilization of its democracy, which Courtney Donovan Smith wrote about in the Taipei Times in “With the Sunflower movement Taiwan dodged a bullet” — Ma’s political swansong in China, which included fawning dithyrambs