Back in November 2018, Taiwan was targeted by a massive disinformation campaign. The aim of this effort, widely attributed to Beijing, was to influence midterm election results on the island, which China has claimed as part of its own territory since the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949.

Many political analysts now believe that this interference played a role in the shock victory of the pro-China candidate Han Kuo-yu as mayor of Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s second largest city. That result was so unexpected that it drew comparisons to the election of President Donald Trump in the United States. Once the election was over, researchers and Taiwanese officials evidenced that much of the disinformation, distributed via content mills, fake accounts, and the use of bots, originated in China.

In January 2019, V-Dem Institute, an independent research institute based in Sweden, declared Taiwan one of a few democracies most affected by disinformation. These incursions have continued throughout the nation’s January 2020 presidential election and the subsequent coronavirus pandemic.

According to the Taiwan-based disinformation research center Doublethink Lab, China’s strategy has evolved. While previous disinformation campaigns focused on open social networks — including the Reddit-like message board PTT, Facebook, and Twitter — they have now shifted towards a popular Tokyo-based messaging app named Line.