Taiwan -Disinformation campaign against Taiwan constitutes biggest threat

Location: Taipei City – Taiwan

Language: English/Mandarin

Duration: 00:05:48

Source: A24 subscribers                

Restrictions: A24 clients

Dateline: 28/02/2021

Storyline

Taiwan has been subject to a systematic disinformation campaign as this campaign poses an “existential” threat to Taiwan, according to Zsuzsa Ferenczy, who is a Taiwan-based EU foreign policy expert. Laura Kao, who works for the government in Taipei, said the disinformation campaign is a “virus,” adding that raising the awareness of people is key to tackling this issue. She said people would double-check and restrain from sending the information to others, hence, stopping the spread of false information. The huge issue has led to the establishment of several fact-checking organizations, including FactCheck Center, which is supported by Google as part of an initiative to stem the spread of disinformation. Summer Chen, who is a journalist, said Taiwan plays a very important role in the battle against disinformation as it houses many Mandarin-speaking fact-checking organizations. 

Shotslist

(Soundbite) Laura Kao – Government Affairs and Public Policy Manager, Taiwan:

“False information is like a virus. But when everyone is aware of this, this means we are more or less immune to it. When you see such information, you would start to wonder and debunk it, or even not to send it to others. Then the virus would not keep on infecting others.”

(Soundbite) Dr. Zsuzsa Ferenczy, Taiwan-based EU foreign policy expert giving lectures in various local universities:

“So, Taiwan, for many decades, has been exposed to disinformation coming from the People’s Republic of China. Because disinformation has been only just one tool that Beijing has used to undermine Taiwan’s existence, posing essentially an existential threat to Taiwan.”

(Soundbite) William Yang, Taiwan Foreign Correspondent Club President and journalist:

“Take the Taiwan FactCheck Center (TFC) as an example; it is now part of a collaboration or initiative supported by Google, right? Google invests one million dollars to try to help them expand their reach out through educational programs or allow them to have more resources to do more things that would be used as materials to inform the public. So, I think that is just one perfect example of how you know different democratic institutions can collaborate. Those with more resources like the tech companies with you know the technological expertise and also the finances can help a nonprofit organization such as the Taiwan FactCheck Center.”

(Soundbite) Summer Chen, Reporter at TFC:

“This is also why Google.org has a $1 million funding for Taiwan. TFC’s biggest expectation in managing this funding is to build up the Taiwanese society’s fact-checking ecosystem. And not only Taiwan’s TFC; we also want this resource to serve around 100 community colleges so that students and teachers there could all learn how to fact check, how to think critically and have a judgment on the information.”

(Soundbite) William Yang, Taiwan Foreign Correspondent Club President and journalist:

“We see disinformation becoming the dominant rhetoric in society. And especially on sensitive issues like politics or international relations in Taiwan’s case; a lot of it is related to the upcoming elections or sometimes, it’s just purely a disinformation campaign that’s trying to sabotage or target certain organizations with political parties.”

(Soundbite) Summer Chen, a reporter at TFC:

“Taiwan has a very important role to play in the world because it has fact check organizations, which is rare in the Mandarin-speaking world. And these fact-checking organizations have cooperation with international social media such as Facebook, Line and Google.”

(Soundbite) Laura Kao – Government Affairs and Public Policy Manager, Taiwan:

“Therefore, three years ago, Google has started to cooperate with various organizations to enhance people’s media and digital literacies. Our programs cover all age groups. For example, we work with ECPAT Taiwan to train teachers to help young people think critically when exposed to information. We also cooperate with the TFC and community colleges to create classes for adults to enhance their awareness about the internet.”

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