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How China, and the Law, Jumped in as Taiwan's Presidential Campaign Shifted
to Social Media

Ralph Jennings

   TAIPEI, TAIWAN - About 97% of internet users in Taiwan use Facebook.
   The island also has Asia's second highest smartphone penetration after
   South Korea. Given these statistics, the first announced by Facebook in
   2018 and the other by a market research firm, it made sense that a lot
   of campaigning for tomorrow's presidential election would jump from the
   streets to the internet.

   But the rise of internet campaigning has challenged voters to know
   what's true or false, and to follow a growing suite of anti-fake news
   laws, as politicians allege that mountains of online campaign
   information are untrue, illegally posted and often planted by Taiwan's
   political rival China.

   "Beginning from last year we saw that China is using modern technology,
   in short it's the social media platforms, to try to interrupt in our
   discussions on the internet, either through Facebook or through Twitter
   or even a popular online chat mechanism called Line," Taiwan Foreign
   Minister Joseph Wu told a news conference Thursday. "The fake news
   situation seems to be quite serious."

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