DPP stirs opinions with water army

Revealing masterminds behind cyberattacks on mainland, WHO director

Taiwan’s “internet water army” sponsored by the separatist political party – Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which is now ruling the island – has been actively leading the fight in the international public opinion field, despite their lack of international horizons.

Behind the “virtual army,” the real leaders are Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen and the New Frontier Foundation (NFF), which is under the DPP’s central party department, Chiu Yi, former Taiwan legislator and Director of the Taiwan Institute for Economic Research, told the Global Times.

The NFF is a think tank that was founded in 1999 but the post of the foundation’s chairman is usually held by the DPP president.

Although Tsai has stepped down from the post of DPP president, she still controls the NFF via her close friend Hsu Chia-ching.

According to Chiu, the DPP decided to enhance its function with the “internet water army” after its disastrous defeat in the December 2018 election, and Hung Yao-fu, who had just resigned from the post of DPP secretary general, replaced Hsu as the agent for Tsai.

Facebook user “night high hacker” is an expert in Taiwan social media. He told the media in a recent interview that the DPP had been cultivating ghostwriters in campus networks before it took office.

Those students entered the media industry after graduation. Some start their own media platforms, and gradually took the floor in the public opinion field and became an army for the DPP’s publicity.

The DPP, after taking office, started to integrate them in various ways.

DPP entrusts internet marketing companies and change them frequently.

Chiu told the Global Times that the money is mainly from the central committee of the DPP, the other part is from regional governments under DPP rule.

“Marketing companies started to integrate the internet water army once they got funds,” Chiu said. The first group they reached was internet influencers. The second group is composed of internet celebrities who have a lot of accounts such as Yang Hui-ju.

“Yang is not a big player but rather a mercenary,” Chiu said. Yang’s curses against World Health Organization (WHO) director-general Tedros Adhanom, including words like “Negro,” are still on her Facebook. The water army has beening attacking Tedros harshly.

According to Chiu, some new media platforms have been integrated, such as New Talk and Fount Media. These platforms receive material from the DPP to attack in the same direction. Internet celebrities will operate their accounts to lead public opinion.

Chiu believed such moves showed that the DPP was using the pandemic to seek space for its separatist agenda.

The army use harsh words on Taiwan platforms but play poor on international platforms such as Twitter.

Some netizens apparently from Taiwan tried to rope in Thailand and Hong Kong netizens. They liked each others’ posts and showed a seeming victory of “Taiwan and Hong Kong independence.” Chiu called the scene a “public consensus built on sand.”