纽约时报中文网 - 中英对照版-中英台湾能继续抵御来自中国的虚假信息攻击吗
November 27, 2023 7 min 1433 words
这篇报道揭示了中国长期以来对台湾信息生态系统的虚假信息攻击，尤其在关键时刻如选举前。报道指出，台湾通过建立成熟的事实核查团队、政府投资、国际媒体素养合作等手段，构筑了对外部干预的抵御能力。然而，文章也强调了维持这一努力的挑战，尤其是面对中国不断变化的认知战策略。 作为一位新闻评论员，我认为这篇报道突显了台湾在信息战中的复杂斗争，以及其在保护民主和抵抗外部威胁方面的努力。台湾采取了多层次的防线，包括民众参与、事实核查和国际合作，展现了对抗虚假信息的坚定决心。然而，随着技术的不断发展，尤其是人工智能技术的应用，中国虚假信息攻击的手段也在不断演变，对台湾构成新的挑战。 报道中强调的“保持灵活”是一个重要的观点，表明对抗虚假信息需要不断调整策略以适应新的威胁。在这一过程中，台湾的经验可以为其他民主国家提供有益的启示，尤其是在面对来自中国等国的信息战挑战时。在信息时代，加强民众的媒体素养和建设强大的事实核查机制是至关重要的，以维护公正的信息传播和民主价值。
Suspicious videos that began circulating in Taiwan this month seemed to show the country’s leader advertising cryptocurrency investments.
本月开始在台湾流传的可疑视频似乎显示，台湾领导人正在给加密币投资做广告。
President Tsai Ing-wen, who has repeatedly risked Beijing’s ire by asserting her island’s autonomy, appeared to claim in the clips that the government helped develop investment software for digital currencies, using a term that is common in China but rarely used in Taiwan. Her mouth appeared blurry and her voice unfamiliar, leading Taiwan’s Criminal Investigation Bureau to deem the video to be almost certainly a deepfake — an artificially generated spoof — and potentially one created by Chinese agents.
在视频中，曾多次冒着激怒北京的风险宣示台湾主权的蔡英文总统声称，政府参与了该数字货币投资软件的开发，“软件”一词在中国很常见，但台湾很少这么说。她的嘴形看上去很模糊，声音也很陌生，台湾刑事警察局因而判断该视频几乎肯定经过了深度伪造——即人工智能生成的仿冒内容——而且可能是由受命于中国的人制作的。
For years, China has pummeled the Taiwanese information ecosystem with inaccurate narratives and conspiracy theories, seeking to undermine its democracy and divide its people in an effort to assert control over its neighbor. Now, as fears over Beijing’s growing aggression mount, a new wave of disinformation is heading across the strait separating Taiwan from the mainland before the pivotal election in January.
Perhaps as much as any other place, however, the tiny island is ready for the disinformation onslaught.
但或许就和其他所有地方一样，这个小岛已经做好了应对虚假信息攻击的准备。
Taiwan has built a resilience to foreign meddling that could serve as a model to the dozens of other democracies holding votes in 2024. Its defenses include one of the world’s most mature communities of fact checkers, government investments, international media literacy partnerships and, after years of warnings about Chinese intrusion, a public sense of skepticism.
台湾抵御外国干预的能力足以令其成为将于2024年举行大选的其他几十个民主政体的榜样。这些防御措施包括形成世界上最成熟的事实核查员群体，进行政府投资，达成国际媒体专业合作关系、以及多年来通过对中国入侵发出警告而形成的公众怀疑意识。
The challenge now is sustaining the effort.
如今的挑战是如何维系这些努力。
“That is the main battlefield: The fear, uncertainty, doubt is designed to keep us up at night so we don’t respond to novel threats with novel defenses,” said Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s inaugural digital minister, who works on strengthening cybersecurity defenses against threats like disinformation. “The main idea here is just to stay agile.”
“主战场就在这里：制造恐惧、不确定和怀疑就是为了让我们夜不能寐，这样面对新的威胁我们就拿不出新的防御手段了，”台湾首任数位发展部部长唐凤表示，她的职责就是加强网络安全防御，防范虚假信息等威胁。“我们主要理念就是保持灵活。”
Taiwan, a highly online society, has repeatedly been found to be the top target in the world for disinformation from foreign governments, according to the Digital Society Project, a research initiative exploring the internet and politics. China was accused of spreading rumors during the pandemic about the Taiwanese government’s handling of Covid-19, researchers said. Representative Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island as speaker of the House last year set off a series of high-profile cyberattacks, as well as a surge of debunked online messages and images that fact checkers linked to China.
For all of Beijing’s efforts, however, it has struggled to sway public opinion.
但即便北京如此发力，仍然难以影响台湾的公众舆论。
In recent years, Taiwan’s voters have chosen a president, Ms. Tsai, from the Democratic Progressive Party, which the Communist Party views as an obstacle to its goal of unification. Experts and local fact checkers said Chinese disinformation campaigns were a major concern in local elections in 2018; the efforts seemed less effective in 2020, when Ms. Tsai recaptured the presidency in a landslide. Her vice president, Lai Ching-te, has maintained a polling lead in the race to succeed her.
近年来，台湾选民选择了民进党总统蔡英文，而民进党被中共视为实现统一大业的阻碍。专家和台湾事实核查员皆表示，中国的虚假信息宣传曾在2018年的地方选举中制造重大威胁。到2020年蔡英文以压倒性优势连任总统时，这些宣传似乎就不再那么有效了。她的副总统赖清德在接任竞选中的民调支持率也一直遥遥领先。
China has denied interloping, instead saying it is the “top victim of disinformation.”
中国否认进行了干预，反称自己才是“虚假信息的最大受害者”。蔡英文反复强调她的政府如何努力对抗北京的虚假信息宣传，也多次回应了关于她的策略旨在扼杀政敌言论的批评。在本月的一场安全会议上，蔡英文说：“我们让民众具备反驳和举报虚假或误导讯息的知识及工具，在维持资讯自由流通和拒绝资讯操纵之间保持谨慎的平衡。”
Ms. Tsai has repeatedly addressed her government’s push to combat Beijing’s disinformation campaign, as well as criticism that her strategy aims to stifle speech from political opponents. At a defense conference this month, she said: “We let the public have knowledge and tools that refute and report false or misleading information, and maintain a cautious balance between maintaining information freely and refusing information manipulation.”
专注于信息素养教育的组织“假新闻清洁剂”的联合创始人谢呈釀说，许多台湾人都对可疑的叙述产生了内在的“警报”。她的团队有22名讲师和160名志愿者，在台湾的大学、寺庙、渔村和其他地方教授反虚假信息策略，有时还会用精美的香皂等礼物来激励学生。
Many Taiwanese have developed internal “warning bells” for suspicious narratives, said Melody Hsieh, who co-founded Fake News Cleaner, a group focused on information literacy education. Her group has 22 lecturers and 160 volunteers teaching anti-disinformation tactics at universities, temples, fishing villages and elsewhere in Taiwan, sometimes using gifts like handmade soap to motivate participants.
The group is part of a robust collective of similar Taiwanese operations. There is Cofacts, whose fact-checking service is integrated into a popular social media app called Line. Doublethink Lab was directed until this month by Puma Shen, a professor who testified this year before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, an independent agency of the U.S. government. MyGoPen is named after a homophone in the Taiwanese dialect for “don’t fool me again.”
“现在，每个人都会停下来想：‘好像很奇怪。你能帮我检查一下吗？我们有怀疑，’”谢女士说。“我认为这是一种进步。”
Citizens have sought out fact-checking help, such as when a recent uproar over imported eggs raised questions about videos showing black and green yolks, Ms. Hsieh said. Such demand would have been unthinkable in 2018, when the heated emotions and damaging rumors around a contentious referendum inspired the founders of Fake News Cleaner.
不过，台湾的事实核查仍然很复杂。最近一个广为流传的虚假声明指责公开批评北京的赖清德承诺向巴拉圭提供巨额资金。事实核查人员发现，作为这一说法核心的一份备忘录被篡改过，日期、金额和签名者都被更改了。这种说法起源于一个致力于反犹主义的英语论坛，后来一个新的X账户在一篇帖子中用普通话引用了它，该帖子被香港的一家新闻网站分享，并被一名台湾政界人士在Facebook上转发。
“Now, everyone will stop and think: ‘This seems odd. Can you help me check this? We suspect something,’” Ms. Hsieh said. “This, I think, is an improvement.”
中国的不实信息产生了“显著效果”，包括“导致台湾政治和社会分化加剧，扩大认知中的代际分歧”，兰德公司的研究称。出于对选举相关的假新闻的担忧，台湾政府上月成立了专案组。兰德公司说，台湾“历史上一直是北京的信息战试验场”，中国至少从2016年开始就在使用社交媒体干预台湾政治。8月，Meta对其称为有史以来最大规模的中国影响行动进行了打击，其中包括7704个Facebook账户以及其它社媒平台的数百账户，它们的运作都针对台湾等地区。
Still, fact-checking in Taiwan remains complicated. False claims swirled recently around Mr. Lai, an outspoken critic of Beijing, and his visit to Paraguay this summer. Fact checkers found that a memo at the center of one claim had been manipulated, with changed dates and dollar figures. Another claim originated on an English-language forum before a new X account quoted it in Mandarin in a post that was shared by a news website in Hong Kong and boosted on Facebook by a Taiwanese politician.
北京不断改变其认知战策略。事实核查者注意到，受命于中国的行为者已经不再像上一次台湾大选那样，被香港的亲民主抗议分散注意力。现在他们可以使用能生成图片、音频和视频资料的人工智能技术——“这对中国宣传人员来说可能是美梦成真了，”兰德公司研究员内森·比彻姆-穆斯塔法加说。
China’s disinformation work has had “measurable effects,” including “worsening Taiwanese political and social polarization and widening perceived generational divides,” according to research from the RAND Corporation. Concerns about election-related fake news drove the Taiwanese government last month to set up a dedicated task force.
几个月前，台湾分析人员在一个音频文件中发现了中国参与的证据，熟悉相关调查的人说，这个很有可能是深度伪造的文件，听起来是一名政敌在批评赖清德。
Taiwan “has historically been Beijing’s testing ground for information warfare,” with China using social media to interfere in Taiwanese politics since at least 2016, according to RAND. In August, Meta took down a Chinese influence campaign that it described as the largest such operation to date, with 7,704 Facebook accounts and hundreds of others across other social media platforms targeting Taiwan and other regions.
研究人员说，中国的不实信息帖文似乎越来越精巧而自然了，不再是用明显的亲北京讯息灌水。研究人员认为，有些不实叙事是由中国控制的内容农场制造，然后由代理人、机器人或不明就里的社媒用户传播开来。兰德的研究称，中国还试图购买现成的台湾社媒账户，可能付费让台湾网红推广亲北京叙事。
Beijing’s disinformation strategy continues to shift. Fact checkers noted that Chinese agents were no longer distracted by pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong, as they were during the last presidential election in Taiwan. Now, they have access to artificial intelligence that can generate images, audio and video — “potentially a dream come true for Chinese propagandists,” said Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga, a RAND researcher.
台湾事实核查中心上月称，从2020到2022年，直接涉及中国和台湾关系的不实信息减少了。中国代理人转而更多地侧重通过传播有关当地服务和健康问题的谎言，煽动台湾社会的内部分歧。专家称，有时一些关于医疗救助和名人绯闻的可疑帖文会引导观众去关注台湾政治相关的阴谋论。
A few months ago, an audio file that seemed to feature a rival politician criticizing Mr. Lai circulated in Taiwan. The clip was almost certainly a deepfake, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of Justice and the A.I.-detection company Reality Defender.
Chinese disinformation posts appear increasingly subtle and organic, rather than flooding the zone with obvious pro-Beijing messages, researchers said. Some false narratives are created by Chinese-controlled content farms, then spread by agents, bots or unwitting social media users, researchers say. China has also tried to buy established Taiwanese social media accounts and may have paid Taiwanese influencers to promote pro-Beijing narratives, according to RAND.
Disinformation that directly addressed relations between China and Taiwan grew rarer from 2020 to 2022, the Taiwan Fact Check Center said last month. Instead, Chinese agents seemed to focus more on stoking social division within Taiwan by spreading lies about local services and health issues. Sometimes, other experts said, questionable posts about medical remedies and celebrity gossip guided viewers to conspiracy theories about Taiwanese politics.
在6月的一场活动中，蔡英文总统强调大量资金支持下的“大规模的错假讯息攻势”已成为“最困难的挑战之一”，在台湾民众中挑拨离间，侵蚀对民主体制的信任。她说，认知战防御必须是一种“全社会努力”。
The ever-present menace, which the Taiwanese government calls “cognitive warfare,” has led to several aggressive attempts at a crackdown. One unsuccessful proposal last year, modeled after regulations in Europe, would have imposed labeling and transparency requirements on social media platforms and forced them to comply with court-ordered content removal requests.
事实核查和监察组织称，公众的漠不关心也是一个问题——研究显示，台湾人对事实核查资源的使用不多——此外还有防线过长的风险。
Critics denounced the government’s anti-disinformation campaign as a political witch hunt, raising the specter of the island’s not-so-distant authoritarian past. Some have pointed out that Taiwan’s media ecosystem, with its diverse political leanings, often produces pro-Beijing content that can be misattributed to Chinese manipulation.
“不实信息排山倒海而来，”台湾事实核查中心执行长邱家宜说，该机构每天有约10名核查员在工作。“我们不可能全都照顾到。”为增加民众对媒体认知能力的兴趣，一场“以幽默反制假讯息”的全国活动利用米姆玩笑文化和可爱狗狗的形象来揭穿不实叙事。9月，台湾事实核查中心还针对年轻人举办了全国虚拟竞赛，吸引了李姿颖、郑旭佑和卢泓豫这样的学生参加。
At an event in June, President Tsai stressed that “well-funded, large-scale disinformation campaigns” were “one of the most difficult challenges,” pitting Taiwanese citizens against one another and corroding trust in democratic institutions. Disinformation defense, she said, must be “a whole-of-society effort.”
这三位公民课同学获得第三名，他们承认台湾喧闹的政治环境会让不实信息得以滋生困惑与混乱。然而台湾人已经意识到需要警惕。
Fact checkers and watchdog groups said public apathy was a concern — research suggests that Taiwanese people make limited use of fact-checking resources in past elections — as was the risk of being spread too thin.
“如果你看到新的东西，但不知道它的真假，你需要查证，”16岁的李姿颖说。“我只是想知道真相——这对我來说非常重要。”