Fraudulent activity on Douyin — the Chinese version of TikTok, run by the same parent company, ByteDance — has increased dramatically over the past five years, targeting people of all ages, officials said on Monday.
In 2019 only eight cases of fraud related to Douyin were reported to the National Police Agency’s (NPA) 165 anti-fraud hotline, agency data showed.
However, the case count has climbed rapidly, with 300 reported in 2020, 2,733 last year and 4,250 this year as of September, the data showed.
Photo: Reuters
Fraudulent accounts on Douyin often post videos of investment “experts,” or attractive people singing and dancing to draw attention, the Criminal Investigation Bureau said, adding that the accounts contact people via the Line or WeChat messaging apps in attempts to defraud them.
The tactics include fake investment schemes, fake jobs to steal bank account information, fake shopping ads and even feigning friendship to sell game cards, the bureau said.
Although Douyin is generally considered to be favored by young people, there has been a significant rise over the past two years in the number of people over 80 being affected by scams on the social media platform, police said.
Douyin’s primary audience in Taiwan can be split into two groups: young people — encompassing children and teenagers — and elderly people, the Taiwan Network Information Center’s Taiwan Internet Report released last year said.
Mobile phones make it convenient and easy for elderly people, who are used to audiovisual content from television, to engage with short videos and be drawn into scams on Douyin, the report said.
Douyin also has a lot of “cognitive warefare” content aimed at brainwashing Taiwanese into recognizing the Chinese Communist Party regime, it said.
Some academics have suggested that Taiwan ban the app to eliminate the risk of fraud and curb ideological infiltration by Beijing.
The Chinese military has built landing bridge ships designed to expand its amphibious options for a potential assault on Taiwan, but their combat effectiveness is limited due to their high vulnerability, a defense expert said in an analysis published on Monday. Shen Ming-shih (沈明室), a research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said that the deployment of such vessels as part of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy’s East Sea Fleet signals a strong focus on Taiwan. However, the ships are highly vulnerable to precision strikes, which means they could be destroyed before they achieve their intended
About 4.2 million tourist arrivals were recorded in the first half of this year, a 10 percent increase from the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. The growth continues to be consistent, with the fourth quarter of this year expected to be the peak in Taiwan, the agency said, adding that it plans to promote Taiwan overseas via partnerships and major events. From January to June, 9.14 million international departures were recorded from Taiwan, an 11 percent increase from the same period last year, with 3.3 million headed for Japan, 1.52 million for China and 832,962 to South Korea,
SOVEREIGNTY: The rigs show that Beijing ‘rejects Taiwan’s jurisdiction’ by building in areas where Taipei demands permission to build or alter installations Chinese oil rigs have been sighted just 26 nautical miles (42km), from Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島), posing a threat to Taiwan’s sovereignty if left unchallenged, a brief published by the Jamestown Foundation on Tuesday said. Pratas Island, 444km from Kaohsiung, is northeast of the South China Sea and houses a Taiwanese garrison. The brief, titled “Rigging the Game: PRC Oil Structures Encroach on Taiwan’s Pratas Island” — referring to the People’s Republic of China — analyzed photographs and said that Beijing’s tools to pressure Taiwan now include oil rigs. “Oil rigs now constitute part of Beijing’s
The Taiwan Experience Education Program (TEEP) has funded short-term internships in Taiwan for more than 4,500 young people from more than 40 countries since 2015, with the goal of attracting and retaining international talent, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. Fifty-five colleges launched 514 projects this year, including in fields such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence, medicine and biotechnology, green energy, and sustainability, it said. The program provides research and practical internships in Taiwan for two to six months, and offers cultural exchange and networking opportunities, the ministry said. For example, National Formosa University’s Embedded System and Autopilot Laboratory developed two solar-powered drones in
RSS