Media reports alleging that President William Lai (賴清德) used vulgar language during a news conference was disinformation intended to harm the president’s reputation, the Presidential Office said yesterday.
The rebuttal came days after Lai on Saturday evening at a news conference responded to a reporter’s request for comment on Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu’s (朱立倫) calls to release Taiwan People’s Party founder Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) from detention, where he is being held as part of a corruption investigation.
Some social media influencers and pundits over the following days alleged that using lipreading Lai could be seen cursing away from the microphone.
Photo: CNA
Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said the office condemns the reports as fabricated with the malicious intent of damage Lai’s character.
Numerous reporters can testify that he did not curse in the news conference, which was broadcast live, she said.
A cybersecurity expert said the story was tailor-made to spread rapidly through social media with the objective of being reported in traditional media.
The source of the story originated from “zombie accounts” on the platform Threads, they said.
A user with the handle kbkbkb0404 wrote on Threads that Lai’s cursing could be discerned using closed-captioning generated with artificial intelligence, while another user with the account henrysnight wrote that Lai glared at the Television Broadcasts Satellite reporter who asked the question.
The kbkbkb0404 account had been silent for a year, while the henrysnight account had just 57 upvotes, suggesting the accounts were part of a manipulation campaign, the expert said.
TV pundits screenshotted and aired posts, they said, adding that Beijing-owned content farm TaiwanHot was notably among the first to share the report.
Multiple problematic accounts also boosted the story on Taiwan’s popular online bulletin board system Professional Technology Temple, in patterns suggestive of a coordinated campaign, they said.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) put Taiwan in danger, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said yesterday, hours after the de facto US embassy said that Beijing had misinterpreted World War II-era documents to isolate Taiwan. The AIT’s comments harmed the Republic of China’s (ROC) national interests and contradicted a part of the “six assurances” stipulating that the US would not change its official position on Taiwan’s sovereignty, Hsiao said. The “six assurances,” which were given by then-US president Ronald Reagan to Taiwan in 1982, say that Washington would not set a date for ending arm sales to Taiwan, consult
A Taiwanese academic yesterday said that Chinese Ambassador to Denmark Wang Xuefeng (王雪峰) disrespected Denmark and Japan when he earlier this year allegedly asked Japan’s embassy to make Taiwan’s representatives leave an event in Copenhagen. The Danish-language Berlingske on Sunday reported the incident in an article with the headline “The emperor’s birthday ended in drama in Copenhagen: More conflict may be on the way between Denmark and China.” It said that on Feb. 26, the Japanese embassy in Denmark held an event for Japanese Emperor Naruhito’s birthday, with about 200 guests in attendance, including representatives from Taiwan. After addressing the Japanese hosts, Wang
RSS