Shannon Brandao
From the article: "CNN [excerpt]: According to a report by Stockholm University’s Varieties of Democracy Project, published in March this year, #Taiwan for the 10th consecutive year received the greatest amount of #disinformation from outside its borders, highlighting the need for effective fact-checking mechanisms on the island.
A growing security risk
Disinformation is something Taiwan’s security agencies are particularly alert to.
At a recent closed-door security briefing attended by CNN, Taiwan’s intelligence community warned that #China has been working to influence Taiwan’s upcoming #election through a series of disinformation, military and economic operations, with the goal of boosting the chances of opposition candidates who favor improving ties with Beijing.
According to Taiwanese intelligence, Wang Huning, the fourth-ranking leader in th[e] Chinese Communist Party, recently convened a meeting to coordinate efforts to influence the election, while reducing the likelihood that external parties could find evidence of such interference.
'They hope that the party they dislike will lose the election,' a senior Taiwanese security official, referring to the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which views Taiwan as a de facto sovereign nation and has prioritized elevating Taipei’s ties with Western powers since taking office in 2016.
The candidate for DPP, Vice President Lai Ching-te, is currently leading in the polls, and is openly loathed by Chinese officials.
Lai is ahead of two other candidates – Hou Yu-ih from the Kuomintang party and Ko Wen-je from the Taiwan People’s Party – who are seen as favoring closer relations with Beijing.
Among the different strategies deployed by Beijing, Taiwan believes China’s cognitive warfare operations – which included spreading disinformation in Taiwan and magnifying talking points that favor China-friendly candidates – are the most sophisticated, multiple officials said at a closed-door briefing on security affairs attended by CNN.
Besides operating content farms and fake accounts on #socialmedia, the officials alleged that China’s information operations are multifaceted.
Other tactics used by Beijing included working with private companies to impersonate genuine #news websites, handpicking soundbites that fit Beijing’s narratives from Taiwanese television programs and repackaging them into short social media videos, and illicitly funding small news organizations in Taiwan that mostly report on local livelihood issues but also occasionally post content that cast doubts toward candidates unfavorable to Beijing.
...Besides spreading rumors, Beijing has also been exerting pressure on Taiwanese businesses with investments in mainland China to toe the partyline, and luring Taiwanese politicians with discounted trips to mainland cities in an attempt to generate support for candidates lobbying for closer ties to Beijing, the officials claimed."
#geopolitics