Presidential Office Secretary-General Chen Chu (陳菊) yesterday announced that she would sue three political commentators for defamation during the run-up to the nine-in-one elections on Nov. 24 last year and afterward.
In a Facebook post, the former Kaohsiung mayor said there had been a wave of slander and personal attacks against her during the campaign by certain media outlets, commentators and politicians, but the smears and rumormongering worsened after the polls so she felt she had no choice but to seek legal remedy.
She named Wu Tzu-chia (吳子嘉), Hsieh Han-ping (謝寒冰) and Chang Yu-hua (張友驊) as the respondents in her planned lawsuits, which she said she would pay for herself.
Photo: Wang Jung-hsiang, Taipei Times
Citing information gathered by her attorney, Chen said from Jan. 15 to Jan. 31, the alleged smears against her totaled nearly 300 minutes on talk shows aired by Eastern Broadcasting (EBC) and CtiTV.
Forty minutes of one episode, or nearly half of its airtime, were spent attacking her, Chen said, calling the alleged defamation “systemic” and “organized.”
The programs were CtiTV’s News Tornado (新聞龍捲風) and EBC’s Crucial Moment (關鍵時刻), her office said in a statement.
The alleged smears included a claim that the wife of the chairman of a state-owned business had learned how to cook Japanese cuisine for Chen, the statement said.
In the face of a rapidly deteriorating media environment, inaction could lead to society becoming unable to engage in rational dialogue, she said.
While in less severe cases it could constitute online bullying, in the worst cases, it could jeopardize public safety or even develop into extremism or pervasive verbal abuse, she said.
The extensive spread online of comments that have not been fact-checked or that were simply fabricated not only damages a person’s reputation, but also puts the public in the dangerous position of having no means of knowing or determining the truth, she added.
Chen said that she believes people are “mistaken” in believing that freedom of speech allows for comments that are biased, “absurd” or fabricated, as well as those that have not been fact-checked or damage individual or public interests.
She could not sit by while freedom of speech is being abused and misused, she said.
Even if she wins the lawsuits, it would be difficult to restore her reputation, because the allegations would continue to exist online, she said.
However, filing the lawsuits was a “necessary” action in light of a “democratic politics” that is “facing disintegration” and a Taiwanese society that is “in crisis, yet unaware,” she said.
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