Disinformation and ‘fake news’ continued to flood the social media platforms in 2022. In Taiwan, we are seeing such phenomenon especially surrounding issues such as Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, PRC military drills, the pandemic and vaccines, and Russian invasion in Ukraine. As the society’s dependence on interactions on the Internet platforms deepens, we are seeing trends advocating for paid ads indication and algorithm publication. This is meant to help the public understand the origin and motives of the information they are perceiving. Moreover, we would be able to better understand the impact of disinformation on public discourse, while holding the platform providers accountable for their actions (or inactions).  

The United States has published 8 regulations in the past 2 years concerning enhancing social media platforms transparency. The Platform Accountability and Transparency Act (PATA) passed last year mandates platform providers like Meta, YouTube and Twitter to share data with independent researchers. A new set of Chinese regulations aimed at restricting tech companies’ usage of algorithmic recommendations went into effect this March, and the Chinese regulatory office released a list this August of 30 algorithms alongside a brief description of their purpose from the Chinese tech giants including Alibaba and Tencent. The Taiwanese draft Digital Services Intermediary Act that has been at the center of the public’s attention recently would require the defined intermediaries to disclose their advertising and recommendation algorithms while streamlining the process for obtaining court orders to remove illegal content.

The above different acts serve different purposes; while they are common in enforcing transparency by mandating information disclosure, the proposed audience of such information, the mandated category of information disclosed, and the level of disclosure vary. In this panel, we will invite experts from different stakeholder groups to share their perspectives on such regulatory initiative. The aim is to foster discussions regarding the critical concerns in the law-making process; how do we find the balance between privacy protection, free speech, while decreasing polarization exacerbated by social media platforms.

Time: 2022/10/25 02:00-04:00PM

Venue: IEAT International Conference Center Meeting 8F Room 2 (No. 350, Songjiang Road, Zhongshan District, Taipei City)

Moderator:
• Prof. Jason Ho, Taiwan Society of Convergence
Panelist:
•Allen Lee, Manager of Corporate Affairs, LINE Taiwan
• Kuan-Ju Chou, Digital Rights Specialist of Taiwan Association of Human Rights
• Ken-Ying Tseng, Attorney-at-Law of LEE AND LI
• Chih-Liang Yeh, Professor of Department of Information Communication. Yuan Ze University