The National Security Bureau (NSB) published its analysis of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) disinformation tactics for last year, showing that disinformation doubled when compared to 2023.
CCP disinformation is intended to undermine confidence in Taiwan’s military, US support for Taiwan and President William Lai (賴清德), the NSB said.
In 2024, 2.159 million examples of controversial content believed to be CCP disinformation were reported, the NSB’s data showed, nearly double the 1.329 million seen in 2023.
Photo courtesy of the National Security Bureau
Facebook remained the platform most susceptible to hosting such disinformation, with a 40-percent increase compared to 2023, although there were also major increases in disinformation on video platforms (151 percent), forums (664 percent) and X, formerly Twitter (244 percent), the NSB said.
The NSB also found 28,216 questionable social media accounts, 11,661 more than in 2023.
Facebook had 21,967 of these accounts, but TikTok, X and China’s Douyin (抖音) also saw major increases, the NSB’s data showed.
The NSB report highlighted six key tactics employed by the CCP to interfere with Taiwan: flooding social media with information seeking to influence voter behavior, impersonating Taiwanese users and official accounts, leveraging military exercises for propaganda, posting artificial intelligence-generated “deepfakes” of Taiwanese officials, co-opting integrated media accounts to spread propaganda and establishing fake international news sites to promote the “one China” principle.
The CCP takes advantage of democratic systems to wage cognitive warfare using internet platforms, the NSB said, adding that this is an international concern.
In response, Taiwan has used a comprehensive strategy to combat the threat of disinformation, the NSB said.
The NSB reported 3,900 cases of disinformation to different government agencies and ministries, and Taiwan hosted more than 100 exchange events to share expertise with other countries, the report said.
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