Ep 268 | Taiwan FactCheck Center: Discussing the Disinformation Related to Taiwan's 2024 Presidential Election

With the presidential election in Taiwan fast approaching (on January 13, 2024). We thought it would be a good time to discuss disinformation related to Taiwan’s 2024 presidential election with Summer Chen, the Editor-in-Chief of Taiwan FactCheck Center and Wei-Ping Li, a research fellow at Taiwan FactCheck Center.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/taiwan-factcheck-center-discussing-the-disinformation-related-to-taiwans-2024-presidential-election-ep-268

We also talked about disinformation that circulated in 2020 around the time of Taiwan’s presidential election and the United States’ presidential election, TFC’s work to combat the spread of disinformation and how the general public can prevent themselves from falling prey to fake news by creating something called a trust circle.

 

Taiwan FactCheck Foundation (TFC) is a non-profit/non- government organization jointly established by the Association for Quality Journalism and Taiwan Media Watch Foundation in April 2018. In December 2020, TFC legally registered as an independent foundation, Taiwan FactCheck Foundation.

 

As COVID-19 first broke out in China, TFC was the first fact-checking organization to alert the potential disinformation threat to the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) in January 2020, which led to the launch of the biggest ever fact-checking project, CoronaVirusFacts Alliance. The alliance unites more than 100 fact-checkers across the globe and has published more than 10,000 fact-checks surrounding the pandemic.

 

Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

·       The difference between the terms disinformation and misinformation

·       Disinformation that was spread about Taiwan’s government donating US $200 million to Israel

·       How Taiwan FactCheck Center (TFC) has joined Facebook’s third party fact checking program and what that means

·       The difference between a journalist and fact checking organization (or between the media and a fact checking organization)

·       How TFC collaborates with tech Facebook, Google and messaging apps like LINE (which is popular in Taiwan)

·       TFC is certified by the IFCN (International Fact Checking Network)

·       What TFC when disinformation or posts go viral

·       How people can file a claim or report to debunk or fact check something they see on social media or a messaging app

·       How people in Taiwan have become aware of suspicious information after having experienced disinformation that happened during the elections in 2018, 2020 and 2023

·       The Cofacts chatbot that people can use to report disinformation in Taiwan

·       Fact checking sites that people in Taiwan can use such at MyGoPen

·       Disinformation related to 2020 elections in Taiwan that TFC debunked

·       TFC was published a disinformation playbook

·       How disinformation that could impact Taiwan’s presidential election in January has been spread several months in advance

·       The misinformation and disinformation observed during Taiwan’s 2020 presidential election

·       How disinformation related to Taiwan’s 2020 presidential election on Facebook and LINE disappeared around December 25^th when Wuhan went under lockdown

·       Disinformation about the 2020 U.S. presidential election that floated into Taiwan’s LINE and Facebook groups

·       How there will be several elections in several different countries around the world in 2024, and the challenge this poses for fact checkers

·       How it is difficult to confirm the origin of disinformation

·       How misleading information makes it into Taiwan’s social media networks, message boards and get picked up by journalists and reported as news

·       How Taiwan FactCheck Center has hosted workshops for journalists to educate them about how to do fact checking

·       Concerns about AI for fact checkers

·       The responsibility of media owners and companies to maintain the quality of jou