Taiwan and the freedom of its elections is under threat from a barrage of fake news from China.
The News Lens
Date: 2018/11/24
By I-fan Lin
Since 2016, when Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)
Credit: Taiwan Presidential Office
was elected as Taiwan’s President after the pro-independent Sunflower Movement, waves of disinformation have engulfed traditional and social media platforms in Taiwan — and many can be traced back to China.
Taiwan has been ruled independently for decades, and Tsai decided to reject the “One China, different interpretation,” otherwise known as “the 1992 Consensus,” an agreement signed in 1992 between the former ruling Kuomingtang and Beijing that helped improve the strained relationship between Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China.
Since Tsai’s decision, that relationship has taken a turn for the worse. Beijing has suspended diplomaticcontact with Taiwan, imposed economic sanctions, forced other countries to cut ties with Taiwan and has bolstered its military presence in the Taiwan strait.
In parallel, a series of campaigns of fake news have captured Taiwanese media, with experts tracing several of these stories back to China. [FULL STORY]
