Developing fact-checking savvy
“People spread misinformation much faster than we can check the facts,” admits Summer Chen, who adds that media literacy education is extremely important. The TFC each year organizes three media literacy workshops, where over half the participants are teachers from elementary through university levels. The TFC has made a point of adjusting its teaching materials so that teachers can take what they learn directly back to their classrooms.
The Institute for Information Industry, which has long engaged in social analytics, is very concerned about the impact of the Internet and media commentators on the general public. This prompted the institute to develop “Check it Out,” an online Google app that is a simplified version of the AI forensics technology used by the TFC. After downloading it, a person need only paste a swatch of suspicious text into the app, which will quickly rate the risk of the text being misinformation.
The TFC also introduces all kinds of fact checking tricks on its own website as well as on Facebook and Instagram. The idea is that people shouldn’t just be passive recipients of information, but should become active researchers. They should get into the habit of checking out anything that looks suspect, and avoid passing it on. “Taiwan’s fact checking community is very active internationally,” says Summer Chen. In addition to the TFC, there is also a Line chat robot called Aunt Meiyu, a chatbot called Dr. Message, the Line Fact Checker, and Cofacts, an open-source fact-checking database that relies on crowdsourced tips.
Speaking at the 2021 Denver Democracy Summit, Taiwan’s digital minister, Audrey Tang, stated that the infodemic can be countered “with no takedown,” and that democracy is practiced in coordination with the people. The Taiwan model of fighting disinformation, she said, relies on ordinary people taking matters into their own hands, using everyday language to explain issues. This is similar to the thinking of Maria Ressa, joint winner of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize and a co-founder of Rappler, a Philippine online news website: “Without facts, you can’t have the truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust. If you don’t have any of these things, you can’t have a functioning democracy, much less try to solve the complex problems we’re dealing with today in the world.”
When the Taiwan FactCheck Center selects claims to evaluate, it puts top priority on matters of importance to the general public.
The Taiwan FactCheck Center uses its website to release fact-checking reports and share tips on how to spot misinformation.
The Taiwan FactCheck Center holds fact checker workshops to show older citizens how to deal with misinformation.