A Taoyuan resident surnamed Luo (羅) learned a valuable lesson about sharing information online after posting a rumor about a knife-wielding drug addict.
Luo owns an ice cream shop on the old street in Taoyuan’s Dasi District (大溪) and is a member of a Line chat group for players of the mobile phone game Pokemon Go.
Her mother-in-law, knowing that Luo and her friends sometimes go to a park near the old street to “catch” Pokemon, told her that they should avoid going there at night, because a drug addict with a knife has been spotted in the area.
Luo shared the rumor in the Line group, warning people to avoid going to the park at night in case they run into the drug addict.
Police came to Luo’s shop the next day and asked her where she heard the information, then asked her to come to the police station with her cellphone.
“I was terrified. At first I thought there was some kind of mix-up and I just needed to explain what happened, but the police told me this was a serious matter, because the information had caused panic among some residents,” Luo said, adding that she was told that spreading false information is a criminal offense.
Asked how police could locate her so quickly, Luo said that her member ID is “Ice Cream Shop on the Old Street in Dasi.”
Other group members had shared her post along with her ID and it eventually reached a Taoyuan city councilor, she said.
The councilor then passed the information to the Taoyuan City Government, which instructed Dasi police to increase patrols around the park.
Police needed to track down the source of the information as part of the investigation, she said.
Luo told police that she posted the information to protect her friends and that she did not mean to harm anyone.
However, police told her that she should have verified the authenticity of the information before posting it, adding that no one has reported anything about a knife-wielding man in the park.
Police eventually dismissed her case after determining that she had had good intentions.
“I have learned my lesson. The Internet is a terrible thing and you have no idea how far unverified information could go,” she said.
A similar case was reported in Hsinchu in July last year, in which someone posted on Facebook about a man harassing women at the Star Cinema movie theater. After the message went viral, police investigated and clarified the erroneous information.
Article 305 of the Criminal Code stipulates that a person who threatens to cause injury to the life, body, freedom, reputation or property of another and thereby endangers their safety could be sentenced to up to two years in jail, or a fine.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS