Taiwanese Hackers in New York Challenge Echo Chambers

Since Taiwan’s liberals suffered a landslide defeat in the 2018 referendum, many have started to see the widening gaps among different communities and the polarization of society. Overseas Taiwanese, some of whom flew back to vote last November, have noticed them as well.

In the past few months, fake news and misinformation in Taiwan have become central issues of politicians’ heated debates. Discussions range from credibility of local news outlets to a larger misinformation campaign, some called information war, from China. People from across the political spectrum have come to realize that the information they are sharing does not travel far; it mostly stays within their social circles and online communities — their echo chambers.

As the g0v Hackathon kicked off last weekend in New York City, many participants proposed creating better ways for communication to bring people together. They wanted to challenge the echo chambers.

Break the echo chambers

“I want to understand what they’re thinking about, the context behind their perspectives,” said Lydia Lin, referring to those with different political views. Her project was to create a search engine that helps people learn about social issues more comprehensively.

The two-day hackathon was co-organized by Taiwanese Data Professionals (TDP), a group formed by mostly Taiwanese data scientists and engineers based in New York, and g0v, a community dedicated to helping people better understand social issues and monitor the government with technology.

The goal of a hackathon is to develop products — either software or hardware — about a cause or based on a topic by the end of the event. Participants collaborate with one another and work on projects in groups. Though hackathon is known for being attended by engineers, there is no restriction on participants’ background at this one. Over 80 people joined this time and about half of them did not come from tech-related fields.

Two dominant themes of the projects were challenging echo chambers and fighting misinformation. Lin’s project was one about the former.

Lin proposed to build a search engine based on Taiwanese people’s experience. The search engine, she said, would generate results related to Taiwanese history and current issues. For example, if a user looks up “transitional justice”, unlike regular search engines, it will not only show general information about the concept, but also those with a focus on Taiwan: how it is carried out in Taiwan, the history behind it, and what transitional justice is like in other countries that are in a similar situation as Taiwan.

“We hope to help construct Taiwanese people’s world view,” said Lin.

This idea first came to her earlier this year when she attempted to talk to people outside of her echo chamber. “We get our information from different media outlets, which all have their own subjective views. I want to solve the problem of information imbalance between us.”

(Courtesy of New York g0v Hackathon)

Another project with a similar cause was Feilx Chern’s. He and his teammate tried to build a website that teaches users how to communicate with, specifically, supporters of Han Kuo-yu, the populist presidential candidate of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).

Han, also the mayor of Kaohsiung, rose to fame during the local elections last year. Often considered an atypical KMT candidate, Han is known for his “down-to-earth” character, straightforward expression, and his passionate and loyal followers. However, his style does not seem to appeal to young people in Taiwan.

Chern and his team analyzed an app used by many of Han’s supporters. The app collects news reports about the politician and identifies those that are “biased” or “discredit Han”. Users then can be directed to the news source and “debunk fake news” by leaving comments.

Chern’s project was to build a website based on the analysis of the app.

“We noticed a huge gap between Han’s supporters and the young people. With this, we can at least know what issues they are talking about,” he said.

He hoped to find out what Han’s supporters are discussing and what news they consider “inaccurate”. He said such analysis helps young people like him understand the other side and know how to start the conversation.

Fighting misinformation

Besides encouraging conversation among different social bubbles within Taiwan, some participants decided to combat misinformation and biased news coverage directly.

Wang, who preferred to be identified by only her last name, proposed to create a newsletter or a website where coverage of selected news topics from Chinese state media and Western news outlets are presented in juxtaposition.

An overseas Chinese, Wang wanted to present reporting done from two, very often, opposing perspective to Chinese news readers. News articles selected from Western outlets would be translated into Chinese.

“What I’ve noticed is that they [overseas Chinese] tend to bring the firewall with them even after they leave China,” Wang pointed out. Besides what are being covered differently, she said, what’s more important is what is not being covered.

“Many do not view Western outlets as untrustworthy, but there’s a language barrier and a difference in news-reading habit. And sometimes they are not aware of the information gap between state media and other outlets.”

(Courtesy of New York g0v Hackathon)

As fake news has become one of the most critical issues faced around the world, it is also a key battleground for politicians and opinion leaders in Taiwan.

One group chose to improve an existing anti-fake news bot designed for Line, a popular messenger app used in Taiwan. The chatbot, called “美玉姨”, can be installed on Line and users can “invite” it to their chat rooms; whenever someone shares a link in the chat, the bot will verify it with a fact-checking database and let everyone in the group know whether the information is correct.

The hackathon group improved the bot by only allowing the bot to respond when the links shared contain incorrect information. Team members said the update would make the user experience better as there were fewer interruptions in the chat.

Besides projects focusing on fighting misinformation and breaking echo chambers, other proposals included creating an app for people to practice or learn Taiwanese, visualization of government data, and a website educating businesses on gender neutral clothing.

Technology for democracy?

With “Tech for Democracy” as the theme of the hackathon, it came down to the question of what technology can actually do for democracy.

Many participants deemed technology as a way to solve problems with the media. They compared technology with media, stressing the former’s ability to empower people. Some said technology is a tool that helps people to directly participate in politics; it allows bottom-up political engagement.

“Traditional media is a one-way system. It is against the liberal values when only certain people are given the power to control the circulation of information,” Chern said.

“Technology helps deliver accurate information. It’s a two-way communication. It creates space for conversation and allows the general public to access government data; it closes the power gap between the government and the people.”

Many shared a positive view in regard to technology’s role to democracy. Wang sees it differently. “Technology has to exist for a reason. It’s only a tool and it can be put to both good and bad use,” said Wang.

“Technology can be against democracy too. Just look at China’s Great Firewall,” she added.

Create sustainable projects

One of the most well-known projects that came out of g0v’s hackathons is the Taiwan National Treasure. Hsiao Hsin-sheng, a former member of the New Power Party, was one of the founders. He was invited to speak at the hackathon this year.

Taiwan National Treasure is an online database that compiles US historical documents about Taiwan. It aims to construct a more thorough Taiwanese history by bringing records buried in foreign institutions to the public eye. Members and volunteers of the team travel to several locations, including the United States’ National Archives Records Administration in Maryland and the United Nations Archives in New York, to collect documents. The materials will then be organized and uploaded to the database for everyone’s use.

Due to the project’s success, it has now been registered as a non-profit organization in the U.S. and the team is planning to expand its search to the United Kingdom and Japan. There are also plans underway for the team to collaborate with the Taiwanese government.

Taiwan National Treasure is not the only one that lives on after it was initiated in a hackathon. A list of other previous projects are still running and available online.

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A hackathon may sound overly “techy” for newcomers without a relevant background, but the people here were essentially a group of, mostly, young people who are eager to do something for Taiwan.

They tackle social issues with technology, and they yearn for change.

(Feature photo courtesy of g0v Hackathon New York)