Taiwan's resilience to disinformation provides lessons for NZ

While old fashion electioneering is still alive and well in Taiwan, like elsewhere in the world social media is playing an increasingly dominant role (Photo: Justin Wong)

Elections in Taiwan have long been subject to foreign interference, fuelled by the rise of the internet and social media. Beyond Taiwan, the global disinformation climate is heating up as bad actors from across the ideological spectrum take advantage of the vulnerabilities inherent to social media platforms like Facebook and Tiktok.

Readers will be familiar with Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election through the creation of hundreds of thousands of puppet social media accounts spreading false narratives in support of Donald Trump. Digital disinformation has only grown more sophisticated in the eight years since.

New Zealand’s geographic isolation will not save us from foreign election interference conducted entirely online.

Our position between the US and China comes under increasing attention as geopolitics evolves, and although we may not be a central target of foreign election interference, we would be naïve to think we are out of harms way. Therefore, we must prepare for a near future which promises a significantly less trustworthy information environment, subject to the tricks of AI, bad actors, and a steady stream of mis and disinformation.

Taiwan's Deputy Minisyer of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang addressing the delegates

The challenges Taiwan faces, including foreign interference, disinformation which discourages people to vote, and the sowing of division are the same issues New Zealand will soon be facing, and some of these issues are already here.

While not playing a large role in the outcoming of our 2023 election, misinformation about Covid vaccines caused significant division and culminated in an unsettling display of lawlessness outside Parliament in November 2021, which our police and political leaders struggled to respond to.

Therefore, Taiwan’s 2024 election provides an excellent case study for New Zealand to apply to our own protection of electoral integrity in the future. In particular, Taiwan shows remarkable resilience and a strong civil society response to tackle these ongoing challenges.

Digital election interference in Taiwan’s elections mostly focused on Taiwan-China Cross-Strait relations, and Taiwan’s relationship with the US.

Bad actors, often originating from state-sponsored propaganda groups within China, use disinformation and AI to sow distrust within Taiwan and against the US. Much of the disinformation is aimed at electing the KMT, Taiwan’s more China-aligned party, over the incumbent and winner DPP, which focuses on a unique Taiwanese identity.

In Taiwan, much of the disininformation found on social media platforms originates in China and is aimed at electing Taiwan's KMT party (Photo: Justin Wong)

The emergence AI-generated disinformation was a particularly alarming feature of the Taiwan elections, with AI-generated deepfakes of political leaders becoming common.

President Tsai-Ing Wen appeared in a video where she seemed to discuss digital currency investment using language typical of the Chinese mainland, and a political opponent Terry Gou endorsed the KMT on the day of the election. While both instances were debunked, in many cases the damage is done and trust in public officials lessened.

If Taiwanese people, with higher digital literacy than New Zealanders, can be fooled by AI-deepfakes, we in New Zealand and around this world should be taking this phenomenon very seriously.

Taiwan’s government and civil society shows us some of the tools we can use to counter disinformation.

The Cofacts chatbot exemplifies peer-to-peer fact checking, sitting within popular Taiwanese messaging app LINE. Users can upload messages they want fact-checked, and receive an answer based on similar claims from other users, or an original fact-check from one of hundreds of volunteers.

This strategy has the benefit of being fast and direct – messages and digital media sent between families and friends can be quickly fact-checked and debunked.

Over 140,000 messages were fact-checked relating to the Taiwanese election. This technology has clear applications in New Zealand – it could be used within Facebook messenger, Instagram direct messages, or WhatsApp.  

Taiwan’s Ministry of Education also released their Digital Era Media Literacy Education White Paper last year, which focuses on improving media literacy through critical thinking.

While media literacy is taught in New Zealand schools through social studies and English, Taiwan’s strategy is targeted at all ages. This approach is crucial to reach people who were adults before smartphones and the internet were as omnipresent as they are now, and we live in a faster-paced media environment than generations past.

New Zealand could greatly benefit in learning from Taiwan’s strategy and investing in the digital literacy of adults.

New Zealand cannot wait until disinformation and foreign election interference arrives on our shores – we must be proactive to safeguard our liberal democracy. Learning from Taiwan’s approach can help us grow our resilience and be prepared for the future.

The Foundation's Track II diplomacy programme supports informal diplomacy with think-tanks in Asia on topical issues and challenges facing the region.

The Foundation's track II NextGen initiative opportunities for tertiary students and young professionals to kick start their future in foreign, trade and security policy through NextGen activity.