What could those collaborations consist of, potentially?

I also want to ask about at the TFD conference there were representatives from the US who spoke about how the two could collaborate in combating disinformation. I know that you visited the US quite a few times the last few months and gone and spoken at workshops.

In the greenest countries.

I wonder what you think about that because this is a really new conversation we’re all having.

Like something with the cabinet’s clarification website, any sort of public presence of the government, we see this in the most free societies, where the robustness of debate can lead to increased polarization.

There are vague threats outside of that or vague opposition forces, both within and outside of Taiwan, whether political or otherwise. As we’ve seen with disinformation and social media in general, it has the tendency to polarize.

...do you think that there’s a risk of the classic herd mentality building where, especially with something like the current government has an open society, allows people to interact in a very directly democratic way in many cases, which is very novel.

I wonder, though, when people engage on social media and start to do their own analysis of pieces of information that they come across and as you encourage and you provide outlets with the government for them to do that...

There is also a sense, "China is doing this. We need to defend ourselves."

There was some reflection, but just through that reaction, because there was the fair bit of blame, thinking, "Look what China did," whether or not that’s appropriate, that was a thought process of quite a few people.

Absolutely. In this reflective moment, I think there was also the fair bit of finger-pointing at China too. When that happened, it came out on PTT in a few hours that there was a Chinese IP address, but once that happened, fingers started pointing across the strait.

When that happened, it galvanized a lot of fears of there is this undemocratic threat, this blunt-shaped large object that can...

We’re the first generation that can do democracy. Of course, we get something wrong. It’s good to stop and think once in a while, but preferably without losing diplomats. [laughs] It is a silver lining that people are slowing down and looking at the media landscape.

I think it’s true. As you mentioned, the occasion where we lost a diplomat is where people collectively look back and start to think, "Oh, maybe we rushed to conclusions. Maybe we should have stopped and said, ’Is it true or not?’ Maybe we should rework our news cycles a ...

Right, even when they’re disproven very quickly. I think we kind of look back, and I imagine that just everything is eroding.

It can create fear or chip away at people’s hope if a content farm makes a significant impact on the Taiwanese news cycle, as we’ve seen, where false stories, disinformation stories have...

With Chinese content forums specifically, you mentioned the PRC’s surveillance efforts of its own citizens. For Taiwanese people seeing that content farms are receiving some form of state support most likely, and then they’re penetrating...

As a member of the media, I also want to describe this in the correct way. I think that it can be easy to visualize what...I mean it’s very vague. It’s an abstraction. It’s not something that we completely know what it is. How do you see it if you’re ...

The whole population is not working on disinformation, but it presents itself as a looming threat. Some of the conversations I’ve had have said it’s not this big scary thing on the level that it’s been made out be in some circles.

The point being that it can be very easy for something from China to...if it successfully enters Taiwanese society and maybe gets people scared or gets people talking, and they find out that it comes from China, whether or not...As you’ve said, IP addresses can be manipulated.

Absolutely not.

I just want to ask, going back to how to quite define disinformation from China, because it has been bandied about. There have been different terms used to describe what it is to the point where someone in the general public may just see it as this large force. Of ...

I see.

Society has always been structured into some sort of hierarchy. Would you mind elaborating a bit more on how your personal philosophy influences the way that you design platforms like this, where the government will play a role, the people will play a role? If it’s in a horizontal environment, ...

That, too.

There’s the matter of who to trust and there’s a matter of how to engage too. What is my role? Society has...

It’s not a hierarchical society. You raise a very interesting point because I think that it can be a bit of an abstract concept if people come to this proverbial table of horizontal, equally...

...and be seated at the same level.

That’s an interesting point. I know you’ve talked before about the Internet being a place of horizontal sovereignty, where the trust is mutual and all parties can come to the table...

For the first one, yeah.

The existence of this sentiment runs very counter to the democratic society that Taiwan has. Have you heard such a sentiment? When you hear that...

There’s an alternate worry, and I’m curious if you’ve experienced this when people come talk to you. When some of the high-profile disinformation stories have come out, there’s been a lot of response of people questioning whether democracy can deal with this, saying like, "Do we need a strong leader ...

I think that that is a common concern of people. I guess there are parallel concerns. There are concerns of having something like we talked before, the Cabinet website. Should that be in the hands of a government that has designs for control or for suppression or manipulation of a ...

I think that there are ways to look at the current social media environment and the way that information, whether true or false, spreads with a very optimistic lens or a pessimistic lens. I’ve certainly done both myself. I wonder what your biggest concern is as you see the current ...

Right.

But certain messages will rise to the top and those messages are...

If there’s a free market of information, then a given person only may have so much tolerance to digest?

I want to ask something that comes to mind when we talk about open information and free sharing of information. Do you ever worry that any given person’s tolerance for information may only reach a certain level?

Yeah, deepfake. When you spoke about immersive experiences, I wonder, is that is something that you think is potentially accelerating at the same speed? Is it something you’ve witnessed a lot of or that you fear for the future?

That brings me back to an anecdote I’ve heard about. It was one of the speakers at the g0v summit, Scott Hubli. He told me about how another frontier of disinformation is things like virtually manipulated images, for example, taking a politician...

Having interactive games, that’s a very interesting approach. Definitely, I’ll check that out later. Having more immersive, engaging experiences is helping. I think that is also a way of building trust.

Right. Is there a role for the government to potentially fund programs like this?

Is there a way that the government could actually...a lot of times, time is an issue, but money is the biggest one.

Could the government ever play a role in explicitly funding programs, beyond education of course, but programs to, for example, heighten the familiarity and fluency of fact-checking operations in newsrooms?

To help citizenry prefer quality journalism.

Yes, getting shorter and shorter. Do you have, or does the government have any role in engaging with the media? Of course, not to tell them what to publish and what not to publish, but to...

I know you will make a distinction here between mis- and disinformation. A lot of things spread very quickly because there is a motivation in media to get things out before the competitor, to get things out very quickly, which happens a lot here in Taiwanese media.

...for the less tech literate people or for the people who don’t engage as much.

That’s certainly a prescription for younger generations, something that has been called for. I would ask what is the most immediate prescription for the adult population? When I speak for the adult population, I know that you can’t necessarily reach everyone through methods like vTaiwan through open government...

Let’s go back. For the general public, for people who are critically questioning where things come from, I know that you’ve talked so much about education in media literacy. I understand that new curriculum are being introduced.