A “new wave of disinformation” is heading across the Strait before the presidential election in January as Taiwan tries to combat China’s ever-shifting and increasingly subtle disinformation tactics, the New York Times reported.
Boasting “a resilience to foreign meddling that could serve as a model to the dozens of other democracies holding votes in 2024,” Taiwan “is ready for the disinformation onslaught” from China, the report said.
Taiwan has “one of the world’s most mature” communities of fact-checkers, government investments, international media literacy partnerships and a public sense of skepticism, it said.
Photo: I-Hwa Cheng, Bloomberg
“The challenge now is sustaining the effort,” it quoted Minister of Digital Affairs Audrey Tang (唐鳳) as saying.
Tang added that Taiwan now needs to “stay agile.”
Beijing’s efforts, such as criticizing Taiwan’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and launching cyberattacks when then-US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan last year, “has struggled to sway public opinion,” it said.
Operations including the Taiwan FactCheck Center, Fake News Cleaner, Cofacts, Doublethink Lab and MyGoPen are providing fact-checking to help citizens ward off Beijing’s disinformation campaign, it said.
Many Taiwanese have developed internal “warning bells” for suspicious narratives, Fake News Cleaner cofounder Melody Hsieh (謝呈釀) said.
However, some fact-checkers and watchdog groups warned against “public apathy” towards fact-checking, the resources of which were not widely used in past elections, it said.
In addition, posts originating from China “appear increasingly subtle and organic, rather than flooding the zone with obvious pro-Beijing messages.”
Content farms under Beijing’s control might create false information, which would then be spread by agents, bots or unwitting social media users, it said.
Other tactics used by Beijing include buying established Taiwanese social media accounts and paying Taiwanese influencers to promote pro-China narratives, the report cited research from the RAND Corp as saying.
The Chinese disinformation campaign also shifted its focus from the relations between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait to Taiwan’s domestic issues to provoke social division, such as “spreading lies about local services and health issues,” it said.
In comparison to the last presidential election in 2020, Beijing is “no longer distracted by pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong” and can take better advantage of artificial intelligence, such as creating deep fake videos or images, it said.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) previously said that cracking down on disinformation is one of the “most difficult challenges for democracies” and requires “a whole-of-society effort.”
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Taiwan is to have nine extended holidays next year, led by a nine-day Lunar New Year break, the Cabinet announced yesterday. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year matches the length of this year’s holiday, which featured six extended holidays. The increase in extended holidays is due to the Act on the Implementation of Commemorative and Festival Holidays (紀念日及節日實施條例), which was passed early last month with support from the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party. Under the new act, the day before Lunar New Year’s Eve is also a national holiday, and Labor Day would no longer be limited
COMMITMENTS: The company had a relatively low renewable ratio at 56 percent and did not have any goal to achieve 100 percent renewable energy, the report said Pegatron Corp ranked the lowest among five major final assembly suppliers in progressing toward Apple Inc’s commitment to be 100 percent carbon neutral by 2030, a Greenpeace East Asia report said yesterday. While Apple has set the goal of using 100 percent renewable energy across its entire business, supply chain and product lifecycle by 2030, carbon emissions from electronics manufacturing are rising globally due to increased energy consumption, it said. Given that carbon emissions from its supply chain accounted for more than half of its total emissions last year, Greenpeace East Asia evaluated the green transition performance of Apple’s five largest final
Taiwan is to extend its visa-waiver program for Philippine passport holders for another year, starting on Aug. 1, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said on Friday. Lin made the announcement during a reception in Taipei marking the 127th anniversary of Philippine independence and the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The decision reflected Taiwan’s commitment to deepening exchanges with the Philippines, the statement cited Lin as saying, adding that it was a key partner under the New Southbound Policy launched in 2016. Lin also expressed hope
RSS