Taiwan's digital minister on combatting disinformation without censorship

It should be noted that dragging executives in front of Congress might not have been received well, but it did "its job" by nudging these companies into expanding their outsourced moderation practices to topics important to the US government [0], without the US government itself being too directly involved.

[0] https://youtu.be/iGCGhD8i-o4

And yet:

> The host of “The Daily Show” promised to double down on informing his audience, many of whom he acknowledged use the Comedy Central series as a primary news source.

https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2019/the-daily-show-as...

    China is making an effort to influence public opinion in Taiwan through the media.

Take a look at this post I saw a few days ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20058551

While two dogs are fighting for a bone, a third runs away with it.

What people saw is disinformation that looks like from China, or China looks like is the most beneficial one from the disinformation. But it doesn't necessarily mean it's from China. There might be third parties faking it to sabotage the relationship between China and Taiwan. Aka false flag.

Or simply put, I could create disinformation about me, then I crack it. That will probably discredit my competitor, even though he/she did nothing.

Of course, people could call this conspiracy theory, because lack of evidence. Similarly, people shouldn't consider that so-called China's effort is true. At least to me, I won't be so sure before I see some solid evidence.

>Each of our ministries now has a team that is charged to say if we detect that there is a disinformation campaign going on, but before it reaches the masses, they're in charge to make within 60 minutes an equally or more convincing narrative.

why wait? In many situations/events it is very predictable what fake news and disinformation will appear in say the next hours, so it is possible to do totally preventive Truth "injections" well before the disinformation appears (sometimes even before the originating situation/event happens itself).

One of the most important aspects in fake news and disinformation spread is the receptivity of the given populace to the fake news and information. That receptivity is based on many factors, like education, prejudices, economic and social situation, etc. For example, by systematically performing daily "ground Truth" disinformation "vaccinations" government can work on decreasing the prejudices and thus decreasing the disinformation receptivity of the populace.

Statistically speaking, I should spend far more mental energy on ensuring I don't get hit by a car on my bicycle ride home this evening, than I should worry about getting nuked by China.

If China invades Taiwan while I'm there, I will deal with the situation, or perhaps I'll be killed. That's life, and that's life no matter where I am (maybe I'll get hit by a car tonight, maybe I'll get killed in a freak sparring accident, maybe I'll crash my motorcycle). I won't let these concerns stop me from living, while taking reasonable precautions when I do partake in risky activities.

As for international law - the USA de facto recognizes the sovereignty of Taiwan in many ways. For example, Taiwanese citizens can apply for an ESTA visa waiver - Chinese cannot. The USA sells arms to Taiwan, not to China. Taiwanese citizens are eligible for Global Entry, Chinese aren't.

There's also the Taiwan Relations act: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_Relations_Act

>The act further stipulates that the United States will "consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States".

Taiwan is a sovereign nation, but the whole world has to tip toe around a fragile PRC ego about it. I'm not afraid of living there and shouting to the world that the ROC is the superior version of Chinese government.