Do you think that kind of phenomenon, basically 網軍 in Taiwan are quite common, either in PTT or in other social media?

Essentially, they found 19 accounts that the suspected were 網軍, and they were posting messages, posting articles that either displayed the Sean Lien in good light, or talked bad about Ko Wen-je. There was this propagandistic thing going on with that election.

Thank you. That’s fascinating. Thank you for bringing that up. One thing that related that I would like to dive a bit deeper on, the idea of 網軍 in Taiwan. I did read a paper by a professor at Táidà. His name is Chen Shishi. He wrote a paper about ...

For that specific example, was it a hullabaloo about something that wasn’t real, this accidental murder you had mentioned, or were there protests that were based in fact about a real situation?

Just to be clear, it was on the 八卦 board. It based in fact, or was it based on a rumor, the quarter-million demonstration?

In that same vein, could you characterize political discussion on PTT as exactly the same as you’d see on Reddit or what kinds of things you talk about?

Like Wing Chun, humans basically spreading political messages, stuff like that. Do you...?

That’s a really great answer. What kinds of things have you seen or do you suspect are going on on PTT? From what you’ve said, and what I’ve read as well, it seems like manual propaganda is the way it’s going.

[laughs] Are you talking in terms of social media usage in general, PTT is the top for Taiwan?

PTT as well. I thought to talk to you a bit about PTT, and whether or not you think there might be some sort of political propaganda going on there.

Yeah, you got Facebook and LINE at the top, and then as far as...

One thing that’s interesting about Taiwan is that the social media scene is different from the general West, and it’s different from Mainland China. As far as I understand, Twitter isn’t super popular.

That’s definitely true. One thing that we’ve seen within the project is that bots have benefited from the Twittersphere, in the sense that linguistically and interactively, it’s quite limited. With that limited amount of interaction that you get, it’s a little easier to pass the Turing test and convince people ...

Yeah, I think that’s a little more tangential, but I’m interested to hear anything that intersects that you think would be of interest. That could be one.

Yeah, definitely, on social media.

Yeah.

Definitely.

Yeah, for sure. Obviously bots, especially within the digital sphere, is a really broad term. Political bots are kind of what we’re interested in. More than that, I guess from people I’ve talked to and the research I’ve done, my suspicion is that they may be being used for campaigns ...

But there have also been benevolent uses to promote constructive debate, refuting anti-vaxxers and anti-climate change people online. I was just curious if you have seen any evidence or had any hunch that that type of stuff might be going on in Taiwan.

I don’t know if you’ve heard much about it, but it’s a phenomenon that’s been growing a lot in the last few years. In Russia, they’ve been used a lot for obviously misinformation. The Boris Nemtsov murder was a big hot spot. They’ve been used to flood hashtags in Syria ...

This is all really exciting stuff. Obviously one of the main things I want to dive into, which you may or may not have a lot of info on, is bots. The idea of automated scripts’ being used for potentially propagandic purposes or political gain. Not necessarily on the governmental ...

I’m really excited about your radical transparency stuff and all the work you’ve been doing in the government. I found about you reading broadly about digital politics in Taiwan. Everything I’ve read and everything I watched has been really impressive. Thank you for the good work you do just as ...

That’s the outline of the project. I guess I’ll start with asking you what a normal workday is like and what your responsibilities as general minister are, just to give me a better idea on your background.

Unlike other people I’ve talked to, obviously you have a formal position in the government and you have lots of experience with this kind of stuff. If anything’s too sensitive to talk about or you’d rather not talk about it, feel free to let me know and we can move ...

What we’re really focused on with the project is automation with propaganda and specifically, bots. That’s what we’re most interested in, but that’s not always present. If there’s broadly any digital or computational propaganda out there, we’re also interested in that.

It’s called COMPROP, which is short for Computational Propaganda. It’s a joint project between the University of Washington and the Oxford Internet Institute. Broadly, what we’re interested in is any use of computational propaganda, where the digital sphere and politics mix.

That’s it on the boring stuff. Thank you for your patience. I’ll give you a quick intro to the project. I know I talked a little bit about it in the email, but just so you know a little bit more about what we’re doing.

What is your highest level of education?

How many years of formal schooling have you had?

What was the purpose of your stay? Was it personal, business, academic, tourism?

Could have been farther away.

Yeah. I was in Freiburg for a year.

Where did you live?

[laughs] That’s a new, unique answer. Have you traveled or lived outside of your country?

What would you say is your native language?

What languages can you speak, read, or write in?

Awesome. That’s OK. What is your ethnicity? You can also refrain from answering if you want.

Yeah, I guess particularly in your situation.

Of what country are you a citizen?

Really quick, I just have a few basic demographic questions to ask you for the project. It’s just standard protocol and then we can get on to more interesting stuff pretty quick. The first one is, what city or village do you live in?

Thanks again for making time. I know you’re quite busy, so I really appreciate it.