Jan 10

Jan 10 Talking Taiwan: 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.

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 25th 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 journalism
The role of AI in creating disinformation
How to debunk AI generated disinformation
How people can evaluate the trustworthiness of information by having several different sources of information and a circle trusted sources and individuals that they can check in with
Reliable fact checking sites
The accuracy and reliability of Wikipedia

Jan 10 Talking Taiwan: Taiwan FactCheck Center: Discussing the Disinformation Related to Taiwan’s 2024 Presidential Election

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

Related Links:

Jan 11 Talking Taiwan: Taiwan Presidential Debate 2024: Political Analyst Courtney Donovan Smith’s Insights on the Upcoming Election

Jan 10 Talking Taiwan: Dr. Wei-Ping Li: How Taiwan’s Media Environment Changed from Martial Law Era to Present