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.
Online rumors, often referred to as "fake news," have become a significant threat to democracy, national security, and public health. When these rumors spread through social media and encrypted chat rooms, their influence is magnified, leading to changes in people's beliefs and behaviors. This talk will begin with an introduction to what Lee calls the "rumor-scape"——a contemporary state of information disorder caused by the intersection of the political economy of technologies and geopolitical tensions. Lee will then examine a crowdsourced fact-checking service, Cofacts, as an example to illustrate how civic hackers in Taiwan understand and address online rumors. Lee argues that Cofacts’ crowdsourcing approach not only aims to verify facts but also actively engages in a social project to foster new connections of care and revive conversations that have been hindered by the invisible walls of chat rooms and the widening gap of values and beliefs between different generations.
Mei-Chun Lee is a digital anthropologist with research interests in civic tech, digital activism, data politics, and mis/disinformation in Taiwan and East Asian. She holds a PhD from the University of California-Davis and an MPhil from the University of Cambridge. Her work has been published in Current Anthropology, PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, East Asian Science, Technology and Society. Herongoing research examines the dynamics of online rumors, digital affect, and care politics. She is also working on her first book project, which builds upon her doctoral dissertation, exploring hacktivism and open politics through a case study of Taiwan’s civic tech community, g0v.