Taiwan AI Labs on Wednesday said it found evidence of a systematic attempt to disseminate content accusing the government of attempting to influence the election with an emergency alert about a Chinese satellite launch sent out on Tuesday.
More than 900 articles were published online about the alert, which was pushed to phones nationwide on Tuesday afternoon, the organization said.
The alert was about a Chinese satellite that crossed over Taiwan’s southwest airspace on its way into orbit.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
The Ministry of National Defense later apologized for the English translation included in the message, which erroneously said it was a missile.
After the alert was sent, social media platforms — especially Facebook — were flooded with posts from accounts that bear the hallmarks of coordinated influence operations, Taiwan AI Labs founder Ethan Tu (杜奕瑾) told a forum on cognitive warfare observations.
These accounts mainly criticized the government’s cross-strait policy, with the aim of exacerbating polarization by using extreme language to break down rational discussion and foment distrust in the government and media, Tu said.
Online influence operations and Chinese official media have tended to diverge in their messaging, but starting from last week as election day approaches, they have become more entwined, he said.
From Dec. 30 to Saturday last week, Taiwan AI Labs said it had detected a surge in AI-generated videos claiming evidence of political scandals, which were systematically disseminated online.
Certain topics such as Medigen vaccine procurement were pushed by Chinese official media and quickly picked up by online influence operations to expand their reach, the group said.
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