Taiwan’s Digital Defense: How Citizens Combat China’s Wave of Disinformation

For Taiwan, the threat of Chinese military invasion is less pressing than an onslaught many see as ongoing – a relentless campaign of disinformation threatening the island’s democratic foundations.

As societies worldwide struggle with misinformation and fake news, Taiwan has mobilized at every level – from local temples and community centers to government ministries – to counter what many consider an existential threat to their democracy.

“Taiwan has gone through so much change,” says Mark Hanson, a Taiwan-based New Zealand journalist. “From a country that was under martial law right into the late 1980s, Taiwan has developed into a thriving economy, a leader and innovator in technology, an open democratic society, the first place in Asia with gay marriage.”

This remarkable transformation is what many Taiwanese fear could be undermined by the steady stream of disinformation. “It’s scary that all of that could be washed away,” Hanson adds.

Nelly, an English teacher in Taichung, puts it more bluntly: “The information war has already started, a long time ago. There’s some invisible threats everywhere, like the cyber attacks and [fake] news. It happens to us everywhere.”

As China pursues sovereignty claims over Taiwan under its One China Principle, many Taiwanese view the digital assault as a greater immediate threat than military buildups or trade sanctions. The campaign represents a sophisticated attempt to influence Taiwan’s public discourse and potentially weaken its democratic institutions from within.

Tracking the Disinformation Trail

Investigative journalist Jason Liu has dedicated his career to confronting disinformation at the community level. After five years researching the phenomenon across eight countries, including Ukraine, Liu has documented what he calls the “content mill empire behind online disinformation.”

The Chinese propaganda messages, he says, are increasingly blatant and sometimes originate within Taiwan itself. “You have different ways to identify if they are pro-China or coordinated with pro-China actors. If they are repeating the propaganda from state-sponsored media from mainland China, then they are part of the coordinated behavior.”

What’s particularly concerning, Liu notes, is the evolving openness of these operations. “They don’t hide anymore right now, they share the same picture, they use the state press release or they are making money out of this news cycle.”

The rise of artificial intelligence has dramatically lowered the barriers to entry. “Everyone can do it, everyone can repost hundreds of messages every day,” Liu explains. “If you want to earn some money from the Chinese government, you just have to have the contacts to understand who would be willing to pay for it.”

Through his interviews, Liu has uncovered networks in other Mandarin-speaking countries like Malaysia and Singapore where operators profit from pushing disinformation into Taiwan’s information ecosystem.

Grassroots Solutions

Liu’s approach to countering disinformation focuses on face-to-face community engagement. His program takes him to temples, schools, and community halls across Taiwan, where he shares his international research, screens documentaries, and discusses his investigative articles.

“We are hosting more and more in-person events with children and students,” he explains. “That’s what people in my generation, the activists, media literacy petitioners, we are trying to bring people offline to meet each other. Then you don’t only read about Taiwan from the bots, from the fake accounts, from social media.”

Meanwhile, another innovative response has come from Billion Lee, co-founder of CoFact, an NGO that developed a chatbot for fact-checking and fighting disinformation. The platform’s editorial team collaborates with volunteers to verify news content, while their website offers tutorials in multiple languages on filtering news topics and identifying fake stories.

Fresh from a conference on misinformation in Portugal, Lee emphasizes proactive solutions over blame. “What CoFact tries to do is provide strategies, provide solutions. We don’t want to just blame government or blame China. As individuals here we need to do something ourselves, be activists, rather than just being the taker and blaming it on everyone else.”

Despite the enormous scale of the challenge, Lee remains committed. “I am doing what I can do. That is the thing I believe in, freedom, democracy… that’s the value I want to leave for the future.”

Taiwan’s digital minister, Audrey Tang, has also been instrumental in the national response, telling attendees at the Munich Cyber Security Conference that Taiwan is leveraging artificial intelligence to combat disinformation – using the same technological advances that have made misinformation easier to spread.

While China’s embassy in Wellington did not respond to questions about these allegations, Taiwan’s multi-layered defense against disinformation offers valuable lessons for democracies worldwide facing similar challenges in the digital age.