The UCLA Taiwan in the World lecture series aims to promote Taiwan studies and disseminate knowledge about Taiwan in a global context and shed light on Taiwan’s political economy, international relations, and US-Taiwan-China relations, as well as Taiwan’s society, political system, social structure, and institutions. This series is organized by Taiwan in the World postdoctoral fellow Shih-chan Dai.
In the current digital era, there is an overwhelming amount of information available given the proliferation of various information sources and social media platforms. Survey data show that people have become more and more reliant on using social media. Despite the convenience, social media at the same time makes people more vulnerable to fake news and mis/disinformation. In Taiwan, the spread of fake news and dis/misinformation becomes an even more serious issue since there are news reports which accuse China of conducting disinformation campaigns to not only undermine popular trust in the government but also interfere in Taiwanese elections. The speaker will share with us the impact and prevalence of fake news and dis/misinformation in Taiwan and discuss the different approaches that are adopted to combat them and ways of discerning misleading content.