New student movement rallies against China media, fake news

More than 100 student groups from universities and high schools across Taiwan have formed a coalition against ‘fake news’, in particular to counter state-sponsored media campaigns from the Chinese mainland which seek to ‘distort’ news reporting, including on Taiwan-related issues.

The students led by student associations of the prestigious National Taiwan University (NTU) and National Chengchi University said the coalition called ‘Youth Front for Boycotting Fake News’ would work with student groups on campuses around Taiwan to launch a campaign to boycott media outlets, particularly television stations that promoted falsehoods.

Taiwan’s presidential office said in March that fake news “poses a threat to our democracy”, with President Tsai Ing-wen stating on 7 April – Taiwan’s Freedom of Speech Day – that “fake news warfare from the outside poses challenges to Taiwan, just as Europe is challenged by terrorism”.

“Fake news coming from outside Taiwan is harming freedom in the guise of freedom,” she said.

But officials also acknowledged difficulties in controlling falsehoods and media, as Taiwan values freedom of expression – which sets it apart from draconian restrictions on the Chinese mainland.

Some commentators in Taiwan have characterised the student campaign as a new ‘Sunflower Movement’, referring to the 2014 student-led movement that criticised the then Taiwan government’s moves to improve economic relations with China, and which morphed into a major political force after students occupied the legislature.

It is being seen as significant as a student-led movement in advance of general elections to be held in early January 2020, and as countries such as Australia, New Zealand and the United States have become concerned about overseas activities of the Beijing government to influence local media and university campuses.

China’s growing media influence

The student groups said they were especially worried about Beijing’s growing influence over the media in Taiwan and elsewhere.

An online petition launched by students in early April against biased and unverified information also called for government measures against media campaigns orchestrated from the Chinese mainland.

The student groups involved in the petition and supported by dozens of academics and politicians noted that Beijing was consistently trying to “impose censorship” on the Taiwanese media by offering investments or access to the mainland market as an incentive.

In a campaign that had as its slogan ‘Take back the TV remote control’, students at NTU in late March campaigned to ban broadcasts of CtiTV News – a national cable television channel owned by Tsai Eng Meng, a media mogul who favours Taiwan’s reunification with the mainland – at campus cafeterias. The campaign elicited huge support from students within days.

The TV station is well-known for programmes that are pro-China and pro-Kuomintang – the nationalist party that favours reunification. The TV station’s holding company Want Want China Times Group defended some of its coverage on the grounds that it attracted viewers.

The ‘Take back the TV remote control’ campaign grew out of a belief by many students that actually banning the channel from campus would violate media freedom. “Banning certain TV news stations would hurt the university’s reputation of being a free and democratic institution,” said NTU Student Association President Michelle Wu at a 14 April press conference, adding that it was better to switch channels than impose a boycott.

Multiple media channels

CtiTV News was this month fined some TWD1 million (US$32,400) by Taiwan’s National Communications Commission for fact-verification failures under Taiwan’s Satellite Broadcasting Act, after a content review by a committee of experts.

But Taiwan has also become concerned about China using media channels, including video-streaming services operating from the mainland, as channels of political influence.

“We are concerned that streaming media services that have close ties with Beijing could have cultural and political influences in Taiwan,” said Chiu Chui-cheng, deputy minister of the Mainland Affairs Council that handles cross-strait affairs. He added they could “even affect Taiwan’s elections”.

Experts note that unlike the mainland there is no internet firewall in Taiwan restricting access to mainland online services.

But Hu Yuan-hui, a professor at National Chung Cheng University and the head of an independent fact-checking centre in Taiwan, said researchers had “no way to distinguish which disinformation is directly produced by the Chinese government, and which is not”.