Insights on Manipulation Strategies

This week, PRC state-affiliated media has 2 major stories, “DPP’s election will lead to military danger” and “De-Sinicization of Taiwan’s curriculum”. Both are echoed by the troll groups.  The story of “DPP’s election will lead to military danger” is echoed by troll groups on Facebook. At the same time, the story of “De-Sinicization of Taiwan’s curriculum” was manipulated by PTT and TikTok troll groups.

The aggregated top stories from PRC state-affiliated media starting from October till this week were “Taiwan pushed to the boundary of military conflict” (23%), “The U.S. disregards the death of Taiwanese people” (15.6%), and “Termination of ECFA sacrifices Taiwan’s economy” (13%). The story of “Taiwan pushed towards the brink of military conflict” is decreasing, while the “Termination of ECFA sacrifices Taiwan’s economy” is growing.

In TikTok’s troll operations, the second-ranked group, TikTok #74046 (11%), underwent one account suspension and two shifts in public opinion strategy within five months. In early July, when the KMT presidential candidate Hou Yu-ih’s support was waning, the group backed the Gou-Han pairing, aiming to influence the KMT’s decision. By the end of November, as the KMT-TPP collaboration was nearing collapse, the group shifted its support to Ko Wen-je.

AI Labs analyzed comments from troll groups on YouTube from October 1st to December 10th and found that YouTube #71012 (11%), YouTube #71319 (7%), and YouTube #71341 (6%) are the most active troll groups on the platform. Among these, YouTube #71012 primarily attacks Ko Wen-je (48.1%) and supports Lai Ching-te (11.5%), YouTube #71319 mainly attacks Ko Wen-je (45.3%) and supports Hou Yu-ih (6.7%), while YouTube #71341 focuses on attacking Tsai Ing-wen (32%) and the DPP (9.9%). These groups primarily use repetitive commenting to steer discussion trends on media channels or to boost interaction on influencer channels, thereby influencing the algorithm.

Download Full Report:2023 Dec W2 – 2024 Taiwan Presidential Election Information Manipulation AI Observation Report