tirsdag 27. april 2021

China Trolls Circulate Fake Taiwan Presidential Office Memo on Social Media

Images of falsified a Taiwan Presidential Office memo circulated widely online this month, angering the island’s democratic government by claiming that Taiwan had agreed to receive the nuclear wastewater from Fukushima, Japan. In a world of increasingly sophisticated fakes and forgeries, the bogus Taiwan Presidential Office memo posted on Twitter announcing “the government will receive wastewater from Japan” was sloppy with fingerprints from the communist mainland, experts said.

Among the telltale signs, were the use of the mainland’s simplified Chinese characters, terms that betrayed unfamiliarity with the government system of Taiwan, and improper memorandum terminology. Kolas Yotaka, Taiwan’s presidential spokesperson, wrote on Facebook that there were five obvious and ridiculous mistakes in the falsified memo, beginning with the fact that memo was dated April 16, but was already being circulated on Twitter on April 15.