Information on election interference will be consolidated

 Jan. 6, 2024

Taipei, Taiwan

The U.S. National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications reiterated American hopes that the Taiwanese elections are free and fair.  John Kirby said he could not however confirm individual reports of interference, but there are several this bystander could name.  The first is the repeated incursions of ship and aircraft into Taiwan’s defense perimeters, the second is the broadcast by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office saying it was inevitable for Taiwan to be reunified with the mainland which was very overt election interference, and the third is the growing amount of research showing the ways that China is using the internet and media to interfere in the Taiwanese election cycle, whether through social media, TikTok, or hacking and spreading disinformation.  On the last topic, there was some new information in a Taiwanese NGO report about how the social media manipulation is carried out.  Fake accounts follow the orders of a “commander” account, according to AI Labs founder Ethan Tu, who has been studying this.  Some of these commander accounts are run by PR firms, so you can see how this kind of effort has been professionalized.  In general, cases of election interference are still on the rise, and it’s hard for media or anybody to keep track of all of it.  However, Taiwan’s government is promising as of Wednesday that it will publish a report on China’s attempts to interfere in the election, to be released after the vote.