Their days often began at dawn.
They went to churches, temples and parks and set up stalls. They specifically seek out the elderly, who are perhaps the most vulnerable population in the information-saturated society that surrounds them. They provided free bars of soap to get people to stop and listen. This is a metaphor for the scrubbing they were doing.
They spoke to people and asked them about their lives and media consumption habits. They will ask: How has fake news hurt you? They teach techniques for breaking through the static, seeing through the illogic of conspiracy theories, and finding the facts behind the false narratives that sometimes shape our lives.
Taiwan stands as a major line of defense against a global war with China and is vital to U.S. security.
Almost six years later, Fake News Cleaner has hosted more than 500 events with just one official employee and a team of volunteers, targeting college and elementary school students and the elderly, who are said to be the most vulnerable to such attacks. I have connected with people. Do your best.
The people of Taiwan fill the auditorium and are central to the most urgent effort anywhere to rid Taiwan of disinformation and the problems it causes, one case at a time.
Like other democratic societies, Taiwan is flooded with various types of disinformation. It touches on every aspect of people’s lives, from conspiracy theories about vaccines to health claims promoted to promote supplements to rumors that major Taiwanese companies are leaving the island.
Fake News Cleaner students learn how to identify fake news using the LINE app during a class in Kaohsiung City, southern Taiwan, on March 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Yingying Chiang)
Despite its very public nature, disinformation has a very personal impact, especially among older people in Taiwan. It thrives in the natural gaps between people that arise from generational differences and a constantly updated technological environment, and then widens those gaps and causes rifts.
“They have no means of communication. This whole society is being torn apart. It’s scary,” said Melody Hsieh, who co-founded the group with Shu-huai Chang in 2018.
There are already several established fact-checking organizations in Taiwan. Co-Facts is a famous AI-driven fact-checking bot founded by a group of citizen hackers. There is Taiwan Fact Check Center and MyGoPen. But such organizations assume that you are at least somewhat tech-savvy and can find the fact-checking organization’s website or add a fact-checking bot.
However, many of the people most affected are not very tech savvy. Fake News Cleaner believes that addressing this gap requires an old-fashioned approach: going offline. At the heart of the group’s work is approaching people with patience and respect while educating them about the algorithms and norms that drive the platforms they use.
Hsieh said she was moved by seeing so many cases of division caused by fake news, such as divorced couples and mothers who kicked their children out of their homes. Many of these stories surfaced in 2018 when Taiwan held a referendum on a number of social issues, including nuclear power, sex education, and same-sex marriage.
At their second event, Xie and Zhang met a victim of fake news. One vegetable seller told them that sales had dropped because people read that the fern vegetable he was planting and selling, locally called guomao, causes cancer. Business declined and the merchant had to sell some of his land. For a year, there were no orders from restaurants.
He told them to keep working, that’s what was needed.
At a community center hosted by the Bangka Church in Taipei’s Wanhua district, a crowd of elderly people listen to a lecture by Zeng Yuhuan, a 28-year-old representative of the fake news cleaners.
Many of the participants come to the church’s senior citizen college every day to learn why fake news is so persuasive. Tseng shows them some sensational headlines. First: A smoothie made with sweet potato leaves and milk was said to be a detox drink. Another rumor is that the new coronavirus infection spread from India due to dead bodies in the river. He primarily used the example of Line, a Korean messaging app popular in Taiwan.
With just one official employee and a team of volunteers, Fake News Cleaners has been combing Taiwan’s churches, temples, small fishing villages, and parks to spread awareness. They started out focusing on the elderly, but have also given lectures at universities and elementary schools. Initially, to reach their target audience, Xie and his co-founders arrived at his hiking trails near his home by 5 a.m. to set up food stalls and offer free bars of soap to encourage people to walk. I was encouraging people to stop and listen.
The group now lectures all over Taiwan, from fishing villages to community centers, and also holds semester-long courses at community colleges in Kaohsiung.
Fake News Cleaner avoids politics and receives no funding from governments or political parties. This is due to Taiwan’s highly polarized political environment, with media often labeled by the color of the political party they support. Instead, the group’s lectures focus on everyday topics such as health, diet, and economic fraud.
The key is to teach people to think about what they’re consuming, rather than just reading fact-checked articles. “We’re not dealing with truth or lies,” said Tseng, the teacher. “It’s really about family relationships and technology.”
At Bangka Church, Tseng will be seen lecturing about content farms, which are websites that aggregate content or generate unique articles regardless of the truth, and how these content farms make money. is watched by the audience. He also asks, “Does the article have a byline?” Who wrote it?
Fake news relies on emotion to generate clicks. The headlines are often sensational and directly appeal to her three types of emotions: hatred, panic, and surprise. A click or pageview means more revenue for a website, explains Tseng. Retirees watch him with fascination.
Moon Chen, executive director of Fake News Cleaner, said many elderly people are left with expensive mobile phones that their children bought them without knowing how to use them. In some cases, children may open their Facebook or Line accounts but not explain the basics of phone calls.
That will cause trouble. Algorithms provide pages that phone users don’t follow to fill them, obscuring the origin of the information and potentially confusing people.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Zhuang Tsai-yu, who attended the group’s recent talk in Taipei, had seen a message online asking people to beat their chest if they felt discomfort in their heart. She says she actually tried it herself.
Then she asked her doctor about it. His advice: “Go straight to the emergency room and get tested for a heart attack.”
“We really believe in what people send us,” Chuan says. “When you grow up, you don’t understand the outside world as much.”
