71 MARTINDALE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF PRIVATE ENTERPRISE evacuation assistance. While all passengers at the airport actually received transportation from the Japanese government regardless of nationality, these false reports spread through mainstream media. Fake posts emerged from Beijing-based IP addresses while local influencers opposing Su also participated in the campaign (Kao, 2021). While pressure from his superiors caused Su to take his own life, disinformation escalated the crisis. Taiwan’s political environment faces widespread influence from partisan misinformation. The Kuomintang received the “pro-Beijing” label after the party used manipulated images from Han Kuo-yu’s presidential campaign showing supporters waving Chinese flags. During Tsai Ing-wen’s presidency, fake reports spread about her 50-year cultural artifact loan to Japan and questioning her academic background (Bauer & Wilson, 2022). The narratives demonstrate how domestic actors exploit political disputes to form alliances with foreign actors. China represents the primary source of disinformation that targets Taiwan. Chinese-origin disinformation cases increased 60% in 2024, to 2.16 million from 1.33 million in 2023. Facebook remains the leading information platform, but TikTok, Douyin, PTT, Dcard, and X are gaining popularity among younger users. AI-generated content, deepfakes, and fake accounts that use stolen media identities or hijacked credentials are at the core of these disinformation operations. Facebook identified over 28,000 fake accounts during 2024, with more than 21,000 originating on its platform (Secretariat…, 2025). The operations executed by China have evolved to become more complex and diverse. Researchers have identified bot networks using synchronized timing, identical hashtags, and cross-platform URL-sharing mechanisms to steer trending topics toward misleading narratives like “Tsai Ing-wen surrender” and “Taiwan is China’s Taiwan” (Jacobs et al., 2023). The bots leverage local controversies and divisive topics to manufacture fake grassroots support, a technique known as astroturfing. Disinformation and cyberattacks are recognized as integrated components of cognitive warfare rather than stand-alone threats. China exploits the brain’s predictive systems through repeated fear-based content and deceptive information to break down mental defenses and alter political perceptions (Hung & Hung, 2022). The strategy ensures social and psychological effects endure even after successful defenses against cyberattacks, weakening democratic trust and intensifying social divides. Taiwan has developed a robust civic tech ecosystem to address the spread of disinformation. Counter- disinformation initiatives center on groups, such as g0v, CoFacts, and Taiwan FactCheck Center. CoFacts operates within Line, Taiwan’s leading messaging service, and has processed over 87,000 false information reports through human verification and machine learning methods (Rights CoLab, 2023). The Taiwan FactCheck Center conducts public workshops to teach citizens to detect deepfakes and false narratives, focusing especially on AI-generated misinformation about elections and vaccine safety (Hung, 2024). Furthermore, the Ministry of Education published the Digital Era Media Literacy Education White Paper, a comprehensive policy agenda for incorporating information literacy into the official curriculum (Hung, 2024). The framework promotes critical thinking through five key components: access, analysis, creation, reflection, and action. The goal is to teach students to identify fake information and develop responsible content creation skills. This fits into a broader strategy: Taiwan’s citizen-centric defense system model where all citizens are well-informed and serve as integral elements. This resilient ecosystem emerges from the combined work of civic tech groups, ministries, industry, and educational institutions. Taiwan’s experience demonstrates that disinformation transcends technology because it creates psychological and sociopolitical threats. Given regional information warfare and geopolitical tensions, Taiwan’s investments in civic tech and digital citizenship are as vital as its traditional defense spending. Domestic cybersecurity infrastructure and legal frameworks Legal and institutional frameworks developed for digital transformation in Taiwan have elevated the island’s cybersecurity resilience. The main initiative, the National Cyber Security Program (NCSP), launched by the Executive Yuan in 2017, built a systematic framework to unify Taiwan’s previously fragmented cybersecurity programs and address increasingly complex cyber threats (Jakubczak & Yau, 2021). The initial stage of the NCSP introduced a unified cybersecurity management structure by establishing the Department of Cybersecurity (DCS), real-time monitoring capabilities, and a comprehensive framework that established standards for securing critical infrastructure within the financial, energy, and health care sectors. The high number of daily cyberattacks on Taiwanese government websites during 2021 demonstrated the need for these reforms (Jakubczak & Yau, 2021). The Taiwanese government has deployed security information and event management systems across
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