"The idea is to make reliable information accessible to everyone, according to Lee, in part by giving the power of fact-checking to #Taiwan’s civil society rather than leaving the job to the government."aljazeera.com/economy/2022/9…
"Cofacts is just one of a host of Taiwanese civil society organisations that believe the primary responsibility for combatting disinformation rests with its citizens."
“All of our civil society groups, we kind of have a division of labour. Some of them focus on fact checks, some of them focus on workshops, and we focus on the accounts’ activities," said Puma Shen.
For Shen, Taiwan’s democratic values, including freedom of speech, are a crucial part of the solution to state-backed disinformation.
“If you really want to persuade the public, I think the best way is that the government has to tell the public: ‘Hey, we’ve got a huge issue about fake news and disinformation.’ But then let the non-profit organisations take over,” he said.
Disinformation campaigns, usually in the form of conspiracy theories, propaganda, and fake news stories distributed by content farms, bots, and fake accounts are considered “cognitive warfare tactics” by the Taiwanese government.
"Many campaigns specifically aim to foster distrust of the US – which is one of the island’s strongest diplomatic and military backers despite not officially recognising Taipei – ...
... a tactic that may be working given declining faith among Taiwanese that the US would come to their aid in the event of a war, Shen said."
“There were parents kicking children out, couples breaking up because they have different points of view. And then we started to think about, what did we miss? We thought about the filter bubble and how the algorithm puts us in an echo chamber,” ...
... said Melody Hsieh, the co-founder of Fakenews Cleaner, an NGO that leads media literacy workshops with Taiwanese civilians.
"The events of 2018 spurred the launch of Fakenews Cleaner, among other anti-disinformation organisations. Since its founding, the group has accumulated 160 volunteers and ...
... hosted nearly 500 activities across Taiwan, from lectures in classrooms and nursing homes to public outreach in parks and at festivals."
“Sometimes we host some classes with elders and some will become very angry and stand up and say: ‘Why didn’t the government do anything? They should have an organisation to stop the content farm’. The older generation has been through the White Terror,” Hsieh said.
“I tell them if we create a law or [government] organisation, if different parties get in power, maybe they can press you just like the White Terror … We say the most important thing is to learn how to protect themselves.”
"Taiwan’s government continues to introduce bills aimed at increasing its control over information, a majority of which fail to become law. In June, Taiwan’s National Communications Commission introduced the Digital Intermediary Services Act, ...
... which would establish obligations and provisions for certain platforms with large audiences and streamline the process of removing illegal content."
"Still, many Taiwanese believe the government does have an important role to play in the information war as long as it refrains from policing content — especially given the workforce and funding constraints faced by all-volunteer non-profit organisations."
"Some experts argue the government should focus on improving media literacy education in schools, cracking down on phishing scams, and improving data privacy."
"As cross-strait relations intensify, China’s information warfare tactics could outgrow traditional debunking or fact-checking methods used by the government and NGOs, said TH Schee, who has worked in Taiwan’s internet sector for 20 years."

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More from @WilliamYang120

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By @KeithBradsher: "European corporate investment in #China, is falling steeply and now mostly limited to a handful of multinationals, three new reports show." nytimes.com/2022/09/20/bus…
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White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan said US President @JoeBiden was responding to a hypothetical question when he said the US would send troops to defend #Taiwan in the event of an "unprecedented attack." edition.cnn.com/2022/09/20/pol…
“When the President of the United States wants to announce a policy change, he will do so. He has not done so.”
Sullivan reiterated that the White House continues to stand behind the “One China” policy and said that Biden has “reiterated those basic commitments on every occasion that he’s talked about in Taiwan – ...
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