Al Jazeera latest news dataset till Jun 2021

[ {"url": "https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/20/rival-protests-in-peru-as-tensions-rise-over-presidential-vote", "title": "Rival protests in Peru as tensions rise over presidential vote", "epoch_time": 1624164964000.0, "website": "https://www.aljazeera.com", "author": "na", "raw_content": "<div class=\"wysiwyg wysiwyg--all-content css-1vsenwb\"><p>Supporters of socialist Pedro Castillo and conservative Keiko Fujimori took to the streets by the thousands in Peru on Saturday, as tensions rose over the result of a June 6 presidential election.</p>\n<p>Castillo, who received 50.125 percent of the vote with a difference of 44,058 ballots, has declared himself the winner.</p>\n<p>Fujimori got 49.875 percent of the votes and has made claims of large-scale election fraud.</p>\n<p>In Peru\u2019s capital, Lima, supporters of Castillo gathered at the \u201c2 de Mayo\u201d square, calling for the left-wing candidate to be formally announced as president-elect.</p>\n<p>Fujimori\u2019s supporters also held a rival demonstration in a different part of the city demanding the annulment of the run-off election.</p>\n<p>The National Elections Jury says it is still reviewing votes and is yet to declare a winner.</p>\n<p>\u201cWe are not going to allow them to ignore the popular will, to ignore the electoral result. We are going to defend democracy,\u201d said Veronika Mendoza, a former leftist presidential candidate who attended the rally for Castillo.</p>\n<p><figure id=\"attachment_1442809\" style=\"width:770px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img class=\"size-arc-image-770 wp-image-1442809\" src=\"/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/2021-06-20T011024Z_980411919_RC2Z3O9YXVSE_RTRMADP_3_PERU-ELECTION-PROTESTS.jpg?w=770&amp;resize=770%2C513\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\">Supporters of Peru\u2019s presidential candidate Pedro Castillo gather in Plaza San Martin in Lima, Peru June 19, 2021 [Sebastian Castaneda/ Reuters]</figure>\u201cUnfortunately, Mrs. \u201cK\u201d [Keiko Fujimori] is a corrupt woman who should not be president and should accept her defeat because what won here is the democracy, the fair vote of the people,\u201d said Ruben, another pro-Castillo demonstrator.</p>\n<p>International observers have said there is no evidence of fraud and that the election was clean.</p>\n<p>Pollster Ipsos Peru also said it had done a statistical analysis of the ballots and found no evidence of abnormal voting patterns that would have benefited one candidate over the other.</p>\n<p>But Fujimori, daughter of jailed ex-president Alberto Fujimori, showed no signs of relenting.</p>\n<p>\u201cWe are not going to accept our votes being stolen,\u201d she told her supporters in Lima.</p>\n<p><figure id=\"attachment_1442811\" style=\"width:770px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img class=\"size-arc-image-770 wp-image-1442811\" src=\"/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/2021-06-20T000506Z_956439453_RC2U3O9PRUJ7_RTRMADP_3_PERU-ELECTION-PROTESTS.jpg?w=770&amp;resize=770%2C513\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\">Peru\u2019s presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori gestures to supporters in Lima, Peru June 19, 2021 [Gerardo Marin/ Reuters]</figure>\u201cWe\u2019ll give our lives for the country; it\u2019s not about Keiko, it\u2019s about Peru, no to terrorism, no to communism,\u201d said Nancy Falla, who attended the pro-Fujimori rally.</p>\n<p>The tense vote count is the culmination of a bitterly divisive election in Peru, where many low-income citizens supported Castillo while mostly wealthier ones voted for Fujimori.</p>\n<p>The opposing candidates have pledged vastly different remedies for rescuing Peru from the economic doldrums brought on by the COVID-19 crisis.</p>\n<p>The Andean country has the worst coronavirus death rate in the world, recording more than 187,000 deaths among its 33 million population.</p>\n<p>Two million Peruvians have also lost their jobs during the pandemic and nearly a third of the country now lives in poverty, according to official figures.</p>\n<p>Fujimori, 46, has pledged to follow the free-market model and maintain economic stability, while Castillo, 51, has promised to redraft the country\u2019s constitution to strengthen the role of the state, take a larger portion of profits from mining firms and nationalise key industries \u2013 Peru is the world\u2019s second-biggest producer of copper.</p>\n</div>", "content": "Supporters of socialist Pedro Castillo and conservative Keiko Fujimori took to the streets by the thousands in Peru on Saturday, as tensions rose over the result of a June 6 presidential election.\nCastillo, who received 50.125 percent of the vote with a difference of 44,058 ballots, has declared himself the winner.\nFujimori got 49.875 percent of the votes and has made claims of large-scale election fraud.\nIn Peru\u2019s capital, Lima, supporters of Castillo gathered at the \u201c2 de Mayo\u201d square, calling for the left-wing candidate to be formally announced as president-elect.\nFujimori\u2019s supporters also held a rival demonstration in a different part of the city demanding the annulment of the run-off election.\nThe National Elections Jury says it is still reviewing votes and is yet to declare a winner.\n\u201cWe are not going to allow them to ignore the popular will, to ignore the electoral result. We are going to defend democracy,\u201d said Veronika Mendoza, a former leftist presidential candidate who attended the rally for Castillo.\nSupporters of Peru\u2019s presidential candidate Pedro Castillo gather in Plaza San Martin in Lima, Peru June 19, 2021 [Sebastian Castaneda/ Reuters]\u201cUnfortunately, Mrs. \u201cK\u201d [Keiko Fujimori] is a corrupt woman who should not be president and should accept her defeat because what won here is the democracy, the fair vote of the people,\u201d said Ruben, another pro-Castillo demonstrator.\nInternational observers have said there is no evidence of fraud and that the election was clean.\nPollster Ipsos Peru also said it had done a statistical analysis of the ballots and found no evidence of abnormal voting patterns that would have benefited one candidate over the other.\nBut Fujimori, daughter of jailed ex-president Alberto Fujimori, showed no signs of relenting.\n\u201cWe are not going to accept our votes being stolen,\u201d she told her supporters in Lima.\nPeru\u2019s presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori gestures to supporters in Lima, Peru June 19, 2021 [Gerardo Marin/ Reuters]\u201cWe\u2019ll give our lives for the country; it\u2019s not about Keiko, it\u2019s about Peru, no to terrorism, no to communism,\u201d said Nancy Falla, who attended the pro-Fujimori rally.\nThe tense vote count is the culmination of a bitterly divisive election in Peru, where many low-income citizens supported Castillo while mostly wealthier ones voted for Fujimori.\nThe opposing candidates have pledged vastly different remedies for rescuing Peru from the economic doldrums brought on by the COVID-19 crisis.\nThe Andean country has the worst coronavirus death rate in the world, recording more than 187,000 deaths among its 33 million population.\nTwo million Peruvians have also lost their jobs during the pandemic and nearly a third of the country now lives in poverty, according to official figures.\nFujimori, 46, has pledged to follow the free-market model and maintain economic stability, while Castillo, 51, has promised to redraft the country\u2019s constitution to strengthen the role of the state, take a larger portion of profits from mining firms and nationalise key industries \u2013 Peru is the world\u2019s second-biggest producer of copper.\n", "_id": "1acd7b61-c184-5e6d-b512-7bb60a8bc5a9", "news_post_date": "20 Jun 2021", "category": "News", "sub_category": "Elections", "language": "en", "news_post_date_in_seconds": "na", "header_image": "na", "images": ["https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/2021-06-20T011027Z_1411000170_RC2Y3O9KDV97_RTRMADP_3_PERU-ELECTION-PROTESTS.jpg?resize=770%2C513", "https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/2021-06-20T011024Z_980411919_RC2Z3O9YXVSE_RTRMADP_3_PERU-ELECTION-PROTESTS.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513", "https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/2021-06-20T000506Z_956439453_RC2U3O9PRUJ7_RTRMADP_3_PERU-ELECTION-PROTESTS.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513"], "news_sub_header": "Pedro Castillo\u2019s supporters want election results upheld, while Keiko Fujimori\u2019s backers want the vote annulled."}, {"url": "https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/28/disinformation-goes-viral-as-taiwan-battles-new-covid-surge", "title": "Fake news alert: Taiwan fights disinformation as COVID surges", "epoch_time": 1624164964000.0, "website": "https://www.aljazeera.com", "author": "na", "raw_content": "<div class=\"wysiwyg wysiwyg--all-content css-1vsenwb\"><p><strong>Taipei, Taiwan</strong> \u2013 Rinsing your mouth with hot water for 30 minutes and swallowing will allow your stomach acid to kill COVID-19. Taking a hot bath regularly will also prevent you from getting the virus.</p>\n<p>These are just some of the pieces of advice given in a <a href=\"https://www.mygopen.com/2021/05/record-covid.html\" target=\"_blank\">seven-minute audio clip</a> of a woman claiming to be Taiwanese legislator Tsai Pi-ru circulating on the social messaging app LINE over the past week.</p>\n<p>It comes with the accompanying note in traditional Chinese: \u201cVery important! Listen to the whole thing! It\u2019s Tsai Pi-ru sharing (information), I listened to it twice, for your reference.\u201d</p>\n<p>The audio clip and the advice have both turned out to be fake and Tsai, a trained nurse who has volunteered in hospitals during the pandemic, has moved quickly to debunk them. But such posts have mushroomed on Taiwanese social media since the island\u2019s <a href=\"/news/2021/5/16/taiwan-urges-no-panic-buying-as-new-covid-19-rules-kick-off\">most serious outbreak yet</a> of COVID-19 began earlier this month.</p>\n<p>\u201cStarting from May 12 (the day after Taiwan declared community transmission), there has been a lot of disinformation that is trying to trigger panic locally in Taiwan,\u201d said Puma Shen, the director of the DoubleThink Labs, a Taipei based-NGO that tracks disinformation and digital surveillance.</p>\n<p>The disinformation campaigns have taken varying guises over the past month, he said.</p>\n<p>First, they appeared on Twitter accounts, then on YouTube and in individual and group chats on LINE. After that, voice messages claiming to be from members of Taiwan\u2019s elite began popping up.</p>\n<p>In recent days, fake posts pretending to be from news sites such as the left-leaning Liberty Times and pro-democracy Hong Kong publication Apple Daily have also been posted on Facebook pages directed at animal lovers and supporters of President Tsai Ing-wen, claiming that she and other political elites had secretly contracted COVID-19, Shen said.</p>\n<p>Fake news has also been accompanied by what Shen calls \u201cpropaganda\u201d posts with claims such as China offering to sell its COVID-19 vaccine to Taiwan, which has struggled over the past year to obtain sufficient doses for its population of 23 million \u2013 although a domestic vaccine is due to roll out this summer.</p>\n<h2>Sowing discord and panic</h2>\n<p>While disinformation campaigns are nothing new in Taiwan, which is <a href=\"/program/the-listening-post/2019/11/17/taiwans-push-against-red-media\">regularly targeted by China\u2019s well-oiled propaganda machine and its local supporters</a>, the recent COVID-19 campaign has serious health implications.</p>\n<p>Over the weekend, Deputy Minister of the Interior Chen Tsung-yen said posts about the president\u2019s health were \u201creally vile fake news\u201d that amounted to \u201ccognitive warfare\u201d against the Taiwanese.</p>\n<p>\u201cCompared to last year, this year is much worse and serious misinformation and one of the reasons the public is in panic,\u201d said Robin Lee, the project manager of MyGoPen, an independent fact-checking site in Taiwan whose English name is similar to the Taiwanese pronunciation of \u201cDon\u2019t Lie\u201d.</p>\n<p><figure id=\"attachment_1422947\" style=\"width:770px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img class=\"size-arc-image-770 wp-image-1422947\" src=\"/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/AP21135367107110.jpg?w=770&amp;resize=770%2C539\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\">Taiwan has stepped up COVID-19 restrictions to tackle a new outbreak of the virus, which has also been accompanied by a flood of disinformation shared on social media [Chiang Ying-ying/AP Photo]</figure>Taiwanese society has been particularly exposed to fake news over the past month as it grapples with its first nationwide partial lockdown after a year and a half of successfully containing the virus.</p>\n<p>Although daily cases range between 200 and 300 \u2013 low compared with neighbours like Japan \u2013 the outbreak is the most serious yet and a huge morale loss in some quarters.</p>\n<p>Last year, Taiwan went for more than 250 days without a single local coronavirus case and until the end of April, the total number of local cases hovered at approximately 1,200 thanks to an aggressive contact-tracing programme and mandatory 14-day quarantine for travellers.</p>\n<p>However, the recent outbreak has been linked to pilots at the national carrier China Airlines \u2013 who have to undergo a shorter quarantine period \u2013 and has led to the government closing schools across the island for the first time since early 2020 and calling for residents to work from home when possible.</p>\n<h2>Fake news island</h2>\n<p>As rapid-testing stations sprang up around Taiwan and panic-buying returned, temporarily clearing the instant noodle sections of many grocery stores, fake news also made a comeback. But this time around, many of the posts and messages appeared more believable.</p>\n<p>Previously, fake news and propaganda posts from China were easy to spot: simplified Chinese (used on the the mainland) would occasionally creep in or contain words that the Taiwanese themselves would find odd. But this time round the new cache of posts seemed far more credible.</p>\n<p>A new wave of audio messages funded by Chinese government agencies is now making the rounds. According to a 2020 report from American cybersecurity firm Recorded Future, local Taiwanese are now paid between $730 and $1,460 a month to produce social media posts \u2013 close to the average monthly wage on the island \u2013 to write and voice these scripts.</p>\n<p>As Facebook has cracked down on misinformation and fake news, viral messages have migrated to LINE, YouTube, Instagram, and PTT, Taiwan\u2019s version of Reddit. Recent posts have focused on COVID-19 but have also taken on Taiwan\u2019s 2020 presidential election and Tsai who was then running for a second term as president.</p>\n<p>\u00a0</p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1422944\" style=\"width:770px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img class=\"wp-image-1422944 size-arc-image-770\" src=\"/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Taiwan-dog-meme.jpeg?w=770&amp;resize=770%2C770\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\">Zongchai, the CDC\u2019s Shiba Inu mascot, reminds residents to maintain social distancing and wear face masks to control the COVID-19 epidemic.</figure>\n<p>Much of this work, but not all, has been linked to China\u2019s United Front Work Department, the Communist Youth League, and an independent army of internet trolls, according to the US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.</p>\n<p>Some of it is also produced domestically by Taiwanese who may support closer ties to China, which claims the island as its own, or who simply dislike the Tsai administration, CSIS said.</p>\n<p>Videos, in particular, have been traced to content farms operated by ethnic Chinese in Malaysia, said DoubleThink Labs\u2019 Shen.</p>\n<h2>Cute attack</h2>\n<p>MyGoPen and the Taiwan FactCheck Center are just two organisations working locally to dispel disinformation campaigns, debunking fake news on their websites and then sharing information across social media accounts.</p>\n<p>The Center for Disease Control live streams its daily afternoon press conferences across multiple platforms to inform Taiwanese of the latest statistics and health protocols but it has also relied on humour and memes to tackle disinformation.</p>\n<p>A successful campaign has featured Zongchai, the Centre for Disease Control\u2019s Shiba Inu dog mascot. Zongchai regularly appears in messages from the CDC about recent case figures and practical advice, such as the correct length for social distancing: i.e. the length of three Shiba Inus lined up nose-to-nose.</p>\n<p>While informative, the messages play well into Taiwanese\u2019s appreciation for cute memes, where even Taiwan\u2019s authoritarian ruler Chiang Kai-shek has been given the cartoon treatment in LINE posts from his one-time party, the Kuomintang.</p>\n<p>Zongchai\u2019s pigeon mascot for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which regularly announces changes in Taiwan\u2019s travel restrictions, are all part of its \u201c2-2-2\u201d response to disinformation: respond in 20 minutes with 200 words and two images that prioritise \u201chumour over rumour\u201d.</p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"zh\"><a href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/%E8%A1%9B%E7%A6%8F%E7%B7%A8%E7%B7%A8%E5%A0%B1%E5%A0%B1?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#\u885b\u798f\u7de8\u7de8\u5831\u5831</a> \u23f2\u767c\u6587\u6642\u9593\uff1a2021.5.24<br>\n\u2757\u7db2\u50b3\u300c\u7591\u4f3c\u5927\u91cf\u842c\u83ef\u80ba\u708e\u907a\u9ad4\u96c6\u4e2d\u711a\u71d2\u300d \u6307\u63ee\u4e2d\u5fc3\uff1a\u6709\u5fc3\u4eba\u5047\u5192\u5a92\u9ad4\u7db2\u9801\u6563\u5e03\u5047\u8a0a\u606f\u2757<a href=\"https://t.co/x41SBDNMyG\">https://t.co/x41SBDNMyG</a> <a href=\"https://t.co/eDgODga5FV\">pic.twitter.com/eDgODga5FV</a></p>\n<p>\u2014 MOHW of Taiwan (@MOHW_Taiwan) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/MOHW_Taiwan/status/1396644969058689025?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 24, 2021</a></p></blockquote>\n<p><em>(Translation: Post from 24/5/2021. \u2018Suspected mass burning of bodies from Wanhua pneumonia\u2019. False information spread on website]\u00a0</em></p>\n<p>This so-called \u201cmeme engineering\u201d is intended to \u201cpackage the message in such a funny way that you simply have to share it,\u201d Taiwan\u2019s digital minister Audrey Tang told France\u2019s Foundation for Strategic Research in April last year.</p>\n<p>But for every cute Shiba Inu post the CDC churns out, another fake message appears.</p>\n<p>Earlier this week, MyGoPen debunked a rumour that the US had so many extra vaccine doses that they had begun inoculating cats and dogs. Another message claimed the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is only 29.5 percent effective despite scientific data reporting <a href=\"/news/2020/11/9/covid-19-vaccine-is-90-effective-pfizer-and-biontech\">efficacy rates above 90 percent</a> for the original virus and newly-emerged variants</p>\n<p>One thing is for sure: as Taiwan battles furiously to tamp down this latest wave of infections, it will be working double-time to stamp out the fake memes.</p>\n</div>", "content": "Taipei, Taiwan \u2013 Rinsing your mouth with hot water for 30 minutes and swallowing will allow your stomach acid to kill COVID-19. Taking a hot bath regularly will also prevent you from getting the virus.\nThese are just some of the pieces of advice given in a seven-minute audio clip of a woman claiming to be Taiwanese legislator Tsai Pi-ru circulating on the social messaging app LINE over the past week.\nIt comes with the accompanying note in traditional Chinese: \u201cVery important! Listen to the whole thing! It\u2019s Tsai Pi-ru sharing (information), I listened to it twice, for your reference.\u201d\nThe audio clip and the advice have both turned out to be fake and Tsai, a trained nurse who has volunteered in hospitals during the pandemic, has moved quickly to debunk them. But such posts have mushroomed on Taiwanese social media since the island\u2019s most serious outbreak yet of COVID-19 began earlier this month.\n\u201cStarting from May 12 (the day after Taiwan declared community transmission), there has been a lot of disinformation that is trying to trigger panic locally in Taiwan,\u201d said Puma Shen, the director of the DoubleThink Labs, a Taipei based-NGO that tracks disinformation and digital surveillance.\nThe disinformation campaigns have taken varying guises over the past month, he said.\nFirst, they appeared on Twitter accounts, then on YouTube and in individual and group chats on LINE. After that, voice messages claiming to be from members of Taiwan\u2019s elite began popping up.\nIn recent days, fake posts pretending to be from news sites such as the left-leaning Liberty Times and pro-democracy Hong Kong publication Apple Daily have also been posted on Facebook pages directed at animal lovers and supporters of President Tsai Ing-wen, claiming that she and other political elites had secretly contracted COVID-19, Shen said.\nFake news has also been accompanied by what Shen calls \u201cpropaganda\u201d posts with claims such as China offering to sell its COVID-19 vaccine to Taiwan, which has struggled over the past year to obtain sufficient doses for its population of 23 million \u2013 although a domestic vaccine is due to roll out this summer.\nSowing discord and panic\nWhile disinformation campaigns are nothing new in Taiwan, which is regularly targeted by China\u2019s well-oiled propaganda machine and its local supporters, the recent COVID-19 campaign has serious health implications.\nOver the weekend, Deputy Minister of the Interior Chen Tsung-yen said posts about the president\u2019s health were \u201creally vile fake news\u201d that amounted to \u201ccognitive warfare\u201d against the Taiwanese.\n\u201cCompared to last year, this year is much worse and serious misinformation and one of the reasons the public is in panic,\u201d said Robin Lee, the project manager of MyGoPen, an independent fact-checking site in Taiwan whose English name is similar to the Taiwanese pronunciation of \u201cDon\u2019t Lie\u201d.\nTaiwan has stepped up COVID-19 restrictions to tackle a new outbreak of the virus, which has also been accompanied by a flood of disinformation shared on social media [Chiang Ying-ying/AP Photo]Taiwanese society has been particularly exposed to fake news over the past month as it grapples with its first nationwide partial lockdown after a year and a half of successfully containing the virus.\nAlthough daily cases range between 200 and 300 \u2013 low compared with neighbours like Japan \u2013 the outbreak is the most serious yet and a huge morale loss in some quarters.\nLast year, Taiwan went for more than 250 days without a single local coronavirus case and until the end of April, the total number of local cases hovered at approximately 1,200 thanks to an aggressive contact-tracing programme and mandatory 14-day quarantine for travellers.\nHowever, the recent outbreak has been linked to pilots at the national carrier China Airlines \u2013 who have to undergo a shorter quarantine period \u2013 and has led to the government closing schools across the island for the first time since early 2020 and calling for residents to work from home when possible.\nFake news island\nAs rapid-testing stations sprang up around Taiwan and panic-buying returned, temporarily clearing the instant noodle sections of many grocery stores, fake news also made a comeback. But this time around, many of the posts and messages appeared more believable.\nPreviously, fake news and propaganda posts from China were easy to spot: simplified Chinese (used on the the mainland) would occasionally creep in or contain words that the Taiwanese themselves would find odd. But this time round the new cache of posts seemed far more credible.\nA new wave of audio messages funded by Chinese government agencies is now making the rounds. According to a 2020 report from American cybersecurity firm Recorded Future, local Taiwanese are now paid between $730 and $1,460 a month to produce social media posts \u2013 close to the average monthly wage on the island \u2013 to write and voice these scripts.\nAs Facebook has cracked down on misinformation and fake news, viral messages have migrated to LINE, YouTube, Instagram, and PTT, Taiwan\u2019s version of Reddit. Recent posts have focused on COVID-19 but have also taken on Taiwan\u2019s 2020 presidential election and Tsai who was then running for a second term as president.\n\u00a0\nZongchai, the CDC\u2019s Shiba Inu mascot, reminds residents to maintain social distancing and wear face masks to control the COVID-19 epidemic.\nMuch of this work, but not all, has been linked to China\u2019s United Front Work Department, the Communist Youth League, and an independent army of internet trolls, according to the US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.\nSome of it is also produced domestically by Taiwanese who may support closer ties to China, which claims the island as its own, or who simply dislike the Tsai administration, CSIS said.\nVideos, in particular, have been traced to content farms operated by ethnic Chinese in Malaysia, said DoubleThink Labs\u2019 Shen.\nCute attack\nMyGoPen and the Taiwan FactCheck Center are just two organisations working locally to dispel disinformation campaigns, debunking fake news on their websites and then sharing information across social media accounts.\nThe Center for Disease Control live streams its daily afternoon press conferences across multiple platforms to inform Taiwanese of the latest statistics and health protocols but it has also relied on humour and memes to tackle disinformation.\nA successful campaign has featured Zongchai, the Centre for Disease Control\u2019s Shiba Inu dog mascot. Zongchai regularly appears in messages from the CDC about recent case figures and practical advice, such as the correct length for social distancing: i.e. the length of three Shiba Inus lined up nose-to-nose.\nWhile informative, the messages play well into Taiwanese\u2019s appreciation for cute memes, where even Taiwan\u2019s authoritarian ruler Chiang Kai-shek has been given the cartoon treatment in LINE posts from his one-time party, the Kuomintang.\nZongchai\u2019s pigeon mascot for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which regularly announces changes in Taiwan\u2019s travel restrictions, are all part of its \u201c2-2-2\u201d response to disinformation: respond in 20 minutes with 200 words and two images that prioritise \u201chumour over rumour\u201d.\n\n#\u885b\u798f\u7de8\u7de8\u5831\u5831 \u23f2\u767c\u6587\u6642\u9593\uff1a2021.5.24\n\u2757\u7db2\u50b3\u300c\u7591\u4f3c\u5927\u91cf\u842c\u83ef\u80ba\u708e\u907a\u9ad4\u96c6\u4e2d\u711a\u71d2\u300d \u6307\u63ee\u4e2d\u5fc3\uff1a\u6709\u5fc3\u4eba\u5047\u5192\u5a92\u9ad4\u7db2\u9801\u6563\u5e03\u5047\u8a0a\u606f\u2757https://t.co/x41SBDNMyG pic.twitter.com/eDgODga5FV\n\u2014 MOHW of Taiwan (@MOHW_Taiwan) May 24, 2021\n(Translation: Post from 24/5/2021. \u2018Suspected mass burning of bodies from Wanhua pneumonia\u2019. False information spread on website]\u00a0\nThis so-called \u201cmeme engineering\u201d is intended to \u201cpackage the message in such a funny way that you simply have to share it,\u201d Taiwan\u2019s digital minister Audrey Tang told France\u2019s Foundation for Strategic Research in April last year.\nBut for every cute Shiba Inu post the CDC churns out, another fake message appears.\nEarlier this week, MyGoPen debunked a rumour that the US had so many extra vaccine doses that they had begun inoculating cats and dogs. Another message claimed the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is only 29.5 percent effective despite scientific data reporting efficacy rates above 90 percent for the original virus and newly-emerged variants\nOne thing is for sure: as Taiwan battles furiously to tamp down this latest wave of infections, it will be working double-time to stamp out the fake memes.\n", "_id": "8f335c06-3b4c-53b0-a76c-d430d6bbcfe4", "news_post_date": "28 May 2021", "category": "News", "sub_category": "Social Media", "language": "en", "news_post_date_in_seconds": "na", "header_image": "na", "images": ["https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2021-05-25T062000Z_1004040673_RC2QMN9VHHAP_RTRMADP_3_HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS-TAIWAN.jpg?resize=770%2C513", "https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/AP21135367107110.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C539", "https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Taiwan-dog-meme.jpeg?w=770&resize=770%2C770"], "news_sub_header": "Researchers say China is behind much of the disinformation, which authorities worry will put lives at risk."} ]