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Taiwan authorities have accused Chinese internet trolls of sowing panic over the coronavirus outbreak, with much of the disinformation falsely implying the island has an out of control epidemic.<\/p>\n
Police say they are investigating a surge of stories spreading online and through social media claiming President Tsai Ing-wen’s government was trying to cover up an outbreak.<\/p>\n
“We suspect that mainland Chinese Internet trolls are making up and spreading the false messages based on the content and the phrases,” Taiwan’s Investigation Bureau said in a statement late Wednesday.<\/p>\n
“The intent is to cause misunderstanding among the public and to sow panic to seriously jeopardise our social stability,” it added.<\/p>\n
Tsai, who won a landslide second term in January and is loathed by Beijing, took to Facebook to warn people against believing rumours.<\/p>\n
While she did not mention China by name, she hinted at linguistic clues suggesting much of the misinformation was being written outside of Taiwan.<\/p>\n
“Some of the rumours even contain phrases not used in Taiwan,” she wrote.<\/p>\n
One key language difference is that Taiwan uses traditional Chinese characters, not the simplified versions used on the mainland.<\/p>\n
Despite its cultural links and close proximity to China, Taiwan moved swiftly against the outbreak, quickly restricting and then banning arrivals from the mainland, Hong Kong and Macau.<\/p>\n
It currently has 32 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with one death.<\/p>\n
The coronavirus outbreak has only added to tensions between Taiwan and China.<\/p>\n
Beijing regards the self-ruled democracy as its own territory and has kept it frozen out of international bodies including the World Health Organization.<\/p>\n
And the island has long been a target for Chinese nationalist internet trolls seeking to undermine public faith in Tsai’s government.<\/p>\n
Analysts say trolls have got better in recent years at deploying traditional Chinese and Taiwanese phrasing.<\/p>\n
But much of the current misinformation on the virus appears to be more rudimentary.<\/p>\n
Examples of disinformation given by the Investigation Bureau was one false social media message claiming to be written by the child of a ruling party councillor saying Taipei “dares not disclose over 500 infections and 200 deaths”.<\/p>\n
Another false message alleged that the administration of “Governor Tsai,” a term used by mainland Chinese to refer to the president, was covering up the cremation of bodies, the bureau said.<\/p>\n
Taiwan’s FactCheck Centre — an independent organisation that debunks misinformation — said there has been a surge in false posts deploying simplified characters or common phrases used in mainland China.<\/p>\n
“New variants of such disinformation keeping coming out to spread falsehoods in an attempt to create panic,” the centre wrote.<\/p>\n
“We urge readers not to forward these messages but to verify and discredit them.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n