The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) “cannot escape blame” after Lin Wei-feng (林瑋豐), a political commentator, was found to have used his own anonymous posts as evidence that China was conducting cognitive warfare, opposition parties said yesterday.
Lin on Monday apologized on Facebook after reports said that he operated an account on the Professional Technology Temple (PTT) online bulletin board, posting content that appeared to support the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Lin on Monday posted on PTT’s gossip board using the bj26bj account, writing that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Line account is fake and calling for its “destruction,” reports said.
Photo courtesy of the KMT caucus
He posted screenshots of his own posts on Facebook, presenting them as evidence of Chinese cognitive warfare, reports said, adding that DPP Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) shared the Facebook post.
In his apology, Lin said that he has long participated in a “culture” of using different personas to debate politics online, a practice he has found “entertaining.”
The reports drew a heated response from opposition parties.
After the threat of Chinese manipulation during the 2018 local elections, the government passed laws against false news reports, the New Power Party (NPP) wrote on Facebook.
However, it seems that the threat is not only from Beijing, but also from the ruling party, the NPP wrote.
Lin attacked the government and supported the CCP, then used that activity to implicate Beijing, while DPP leaders used the PTT posts to call for an investigation, the NPP wrote.
Lin’s division of labor is clear and his excuse that he was just having fun has no merit, it wrote.
The NPP has itself experienced anonymous attacks indicative of the degradation of the nation’s online democratic environment, it wrote, adding that political parties that employ manipulative actions behind the scenes “cannot escape blame” and would be spurned by Taiwanese if they try to crush public opinion with manufactured debate.
The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) called on the DPP to tell the public how long it has been engaged in cognitive warfare.
Even President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) shared false information that Lin posted on Facebook, creating a major national security risk, TPP spokesman Tsai Chun-wei (蔡峻維) said, referring to a post on the president’s page urging people to “avoid being misled” and to not delete the CDC account.
The DPP says the nation must take precautions against cognitive warfare, yet it is leading the charge, Tsai Chun-wei said.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said that the “ugliness of the DPP’s cyberarmy has fully manifested itself.”
It is sad that rather than fighting COVID-19, the DPP is fighting people’s perceptions, KMT caucus secretary-general Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) said.
The DPP has a close relationship with Lin and has long used such tactics, Cheng said, calling on the president, who is DPP chairperson, to publicly apologize.
The DPP distanced itself from Lin and called attempts to link online comments to it “absurd.”
Although Taiwan is a democracy with freedom of speech, people must take responsibility for their actions, DPP spokeswoman Yen Juo-fang (顏若芳) said.
Lin does not work for the DPP, nor has he been hired by the party, Yen said.
Repeated attempts by the KMT to link the DPP to the comments of individual personalities online are “absurd and out of focus,” she said.
Additional reporting by Chen Yun, Lin, Liang-sheng and Yang Chun-hui
ALIGNED THINKING: Taiwan and Japan have a mutual interest in trade, culture and engineering, and can work together for stability, Cho Jung-tai said Taiwan and Japan are two like-minded countries willing to work together to form a “safety barrier” in the Indo-Pacific region, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday said at the opening ceremony of the 35th Taiwan-Japan Modern Engineering and Technology Symposium in Taipei. Taiwan and Japan are close geographically and closer emotionally, he added. Citing the overflowing of a barrier lake in the Mataian River (馬太鞍溪) in September, Cho said the submersible water level sensors given by Japan during the disaster helped Taiwan monitor the lake’s water levels more accurately. Japan also provided a lot of vaccines early in the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic,
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) on Monday announced light shows and themed traffic lights to welcome fans of South Korean pop group Twice to the port city. The group is to play Kaohsiung on Saturday as part of its “This Is For” world tour. It would be the group’s first performance in Taiwan since its debut 10 years ago. The all-female group consists of five South Koreans, three Japanese and Tainan’s Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜), the first Taiwan-born and raised member of a South Korean girl group. To promote the group’s arrival, the city has been holding a series of events, including a pop-up
TEMPORAL/SPIRITUAL: Beijing’s claim that the next Buddhist leader must come from China is a heavy-handed political maneuver that will fall flat-faced, experts said China’s requirement that the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation to be born in China and approved by Beijing has drawn criticism, with experts at a forum in Taipei yesterday saying that if Beijing were to put forth its own Dalai Lama, the person would not be recognized by the Tibetan Buddhist community. The experts made a remarks at the two-day forum hosted by the Tibet Religious Foundation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama titled: “The Snow Land Forum: Finding Common Ground on Tibet.” China says it has the right to determine the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation, as it claims sovereignty over Tibet since ancient times,
Temperatures in some parts of Taiwan are expected to fall sharply to lows of 15°C later this week as seasonal northeasterly winds strengthen, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. It is to be the strongest cold wave to affect northern Taiwan this autumn, while Chiayi County in the southwest and some parts of central Taiwan are likely to also see lower temperatures due to radiational cooling, which occurs under conditions of clear skies, light winds and dry weather, the CWA said. Across Taiwan, temperatures are to fall gradually this week, dropping to 15°C to 16°C in the early hours of Wednesday
RSS