How digital innovation can fight pandemics and strengthen democracy | Audrey Tang

52,495 views ・ 2020-07-07

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:12
Audrey Tang: Very happy to be joining you,
0
12556
2016
00:14
and good local time, everyone.
1
14596
1766
00:18
David Biello: So, tell us about --
2
18135
2267
00:20
Sorry to --
3
20960
1150
00:22
Tell us about digital tools and COVID.
4
22420
2470
00:26
AT: Sure.
5
26196
1151
00:27
Yeah, I'm really happy to share with you
6
27371
2367
00:29
how Taiwan successfully countered the COVID
7
29762
2780
00:32
using the power of digital democracy tools.
8
32566
2836
00:36
As we know, democracy improves as more people participate.
9
36101
3627
00:39
And digital technology remains one of the best ways to improve participation,
10
39752
4493
00:44
as long as the focus is on finding common ground,
11
44269
2389
00:46
that is to say, prosocial media instead of antisocial media.
12
46682
4103
00:50
And there's three key ideas that I would like to share today
13
50809
3681
00:54
about digital democracy that is fast, fair and fun.
14
54514
4349
01:00
First about the fast part.
15
60277
2006
01:02
Whereas many jurisdictions began countering coronavirus only this year,
16
62307
3714
01:06
Taiwan started last year.
17
66045
1826
01:07
Last December, when Dr. Li Wenliang, the PRC whistleblower,
18
67895
3674
01:11
posted that there are new SARS cases,
19
71593
2714
01:14
he got inquiries and eventually punishments
20
74331
2278
01:16
from PRC police institutions.
21
76633
2015
01:18
But at the same time,
22
78958
1150
01:20
the Taiwan equivalent of Reddit, the Ptt board,
23
80132
2937
01:23
has someone called nomorepipe
24
83093
1833
01:24
reposting Dr. Li Wenliang's whistleblowing.
25
84950
2794
01:27
And our medical officers immediately noticed this post
26
87768
2965
01:30
and issued an order that says
27
90757
1555
01:32
all passengers flying in from Wuhan to Taiwan
28
92336
2682
01:35
need to start health inspections the very next day,
29
95042
2445
01:37
which is the first day of January.
30
97511
2063
01:39
And this says to me two things.
31
99598
1852
01:41
First, the civil society trusts the government enough
32
101474
2509
01:44
to talk about possible new SARS outbreaks in the public forum.
33
104007
2967
01:46
And the government trusts citizens enough
34
106998
1967
01:48
to take it seriously and treat it as if SARS has happened again,
35
108989
3231
01:52
something we've always been preparing for, since 2003.
36
112244
3270
01:55
And because of this open civil society,
37
115538
2357
01:57
according to the CIVICUS Monitor after the Sunflower Occupy,
38
117919
3864
02:01
Taiwan is now the most open society in the whole of Asia.
39
121807
3163
02:04
We enjoy the same freedom of speech, of assembly,
40
124994
2806
02:07
[unclear] as other liberal democracies,
41
127824
2467
02:10
but with the emphasis on keeping an open mind
42
130315
2207
02:12
to novel ideas from the society.
43
132546
2849
02:15
And that is why our schools and businesses still remain open today,
44
135419
3500
02:18
there was no lockdown,
45
138943
1229
02:20
it's been a month with no local confirmed cases.
46
140196
2555
02:23
So the fast part.
47
143513
1150
02:24
Every day, our Central Epidemic Command Center, or CECC,
48
144997
3271
02:28
holds a press conference, which is always livestreamed,
49
148292
2643
02:30
and we work with the journalists,
50
150959
1643
02:32
they answer all the questions from the journalists,
51
152626
2411
02:35
and whenever there's a new idea coming in from the social sector,
52
155061
3088
02:38
anyone can pick up their phone and call 1922
53
158173
2126
02:40
and tell that idea to the CECC.
54
160323
2135
02:42
For example, there was one day in April
55
162482
2270
02:44
where a young boy has said he doesn't want to go to school
56
164776
2968
02:47
because his school mates may laugh at him
57
167768
1960
02:49
because all he had is a pink medical mask.
58
169752
2706
02:52
The very next day,
59
172482
1175
02:53
everybody in the CECC press conference started wearing pink medical masks,
60
173681
3991
02:57
making sure that everybody learns about gender mainstreaming.
61
177696
2934
03:00
And so this kind of rapid response system
62
180654
2016
03:02
builds trust between the government and the civil society.
63
182694
3010
03:05
And the second focus is fairness.
64
185728
1841
03:07
Making sure everybody can use their national health insurance card
65
187593
3136
03:10
to collect masks from nearby pharmacies,
66
190753
1943
03:12
not only do we publish the stock level of masks of all pharmacies,
67
192720
3571
03:16
6,000 of them,
68
196315
1166
03:17
we publish it every 30 seconds.
69
197505
2572
03:20
That's why our civic hackers, our civil engineers in the digital space,
70
200101
3991
03:24
built more than 100 tools that enable people to view a map,
71
204116
4134
03:28
or people with blindness who talk to chat bots, voice assistants,
72
208274
3882
03:32
all of them can get the same inclusive access to information
73
212180
3117
03:35
about which pharmacies near them still have masks.
74
215321
2730
03:38
And because the national health insurance single payer
75
218075
2714
03:40
is more than 99.9 percent of health coverage,
76
220813
3167
03:44
people who show any symptoms
77
224004
1454
03:45
will then be able to take the medical mask,
78
225482
2159
03:47
go to a local clinic,
79
227665
1285
03:48
knowing fully that they will get treated fairly
80
228974
2231
03:51
without incurring any financial burden.
81
231229
2038
03:53
And so people designed a dashboard
82
233291
1643
03:54
that lets everybody see our supply is indeed growing,
83
234958
2540
03:57
and whether there's over- or undersupply,
84
237522
2230
03:59
so that we codesign this distribution system
85
239776
2539
04:02
with the pharmacies, with the whole of society.
86
242339
2421
04:04
So based on this analysis,
87
244784
1999
04:06
we show that there was a peak at 70 percent,
88
246807
3870
04:10
and that remaining 20 percent of people were often young, work very long hours,
89
250701
4254
04:14
when they go off work, the pharmacies also went off work,
90
254979
2938
04:17
and so we work with convenience stores
91
257941
2243
04:20
so that everybody can collect their mask anytime,
92
260208
2312
04:22
24 hours a day.
93
262544
1411
04:23
So we ensure fairness of all kinds,
94
263979
1758
04:25
based on the digital democracy's feedback.
95
265761
2800
04:29
And finally, I would like to acknowledge that this is a very stressful time.
96
269074
3606
04:32
People feel anxious, outraged,
97
272704
2294
04:35
there's a lot of panic buying,
98
275022
1445
04:36
a lot of conspiracy theories in all economies.
99
276491
2824
04:39
And in Taiwan,
100
279339
1173
04:40
our counter-disinformation strategy is very simple.
101
280536
2794
04:43
It's called "humor over rumor."
102
283354
2512
04:46
So when there was a panic buying of tissue paper, for example,
103
286196
3024
04:49
there was a rumor that says,
104
289244
1436
04:50
"Oh, we're ramping up mass production,
105
290704
1833
04:52
it's the same material as tissue papers,
106
292561
1913
04:54
and so we'll run out of tissue paper soon."
107
294498
2381
04:56
And our premier showed a very memetic picture
108
296903
3965
05:00
that I simply have to share with you.
109
300892
1835
05:02
In very large print,
110
302751
1365
05:04
he shows his bottom,
111
304140
2483
05:06
wiggling it a little bit,
112
306647
2192
05:08
and then the large print says
113
308863
2024
05:10
"Each of us only have one pair of buttocks."
114
310911
2796
05:13
And of course, the serious table shows
115
313731
3013
05:16
that tissue paper came from South American materials,
116
316768
2936
05:19
and medical masks come from domestic materials,
117
319728
2222
05:21
and there's no way that ramping up production of one
118
321974
2444
05:24
will hurt the production of the other.
119
324442
2349
05:26
And so that went absolutely viral.
120
326815
2032
05:28
And because of that, the panic buying died down
121
328871
2357
05:31
in a day or two.
122
331252
1436
05:32
And finally, we found out the person who spread the rumor in the first place
123
332712
3620
05:36
was the tissue paper reseller.
124
336356
1435
05:37
And this is not just a single shock point in social media.
125
337815
2738
05:40
Every single day,
126
340577
1157
05:41
the daily press conference gets translated
127
341758
2018
05:43
by the spokesdog of the Ministry of Health and Welfare,
128
343800
2655
05:46
that translated a lot of things.
129
346479
2179
05:48
For example, our physical distancing is phrased as saying
130
348682
3927
05:52
"If you are outdoors, you need to keep two dog-lengths away,
131
352633
3097
05:55
if you are indoor, three dog-lengths away," and so on.
132
355754
3040
05:58
And hand sanitation rules, and so on.
133
358818
2045
06:00
So because all this goes viral,
134
360887
1825
06:02
we make sure that the factual humor spreads faster than rumor.
135
362736
3293
06:06
And they serve as a vaccine, as inoculation,
136
366053
2598
06:08
so that when people see the conspiracy theories,
137
368675
2283
06:10
the R0 value of that will be below one,
138
370982
2111
06:13
meaning that those ideas will not spread.
139
373117
2802
06:15
And so I only have this five-minute briefing,
140
375943
2667
06:18
the rest of it will be driven by your Q and A,
141
378634
2444
06:21
but please feel free to read more
142
381102
1611
06:22
about Taiwan's counter-coronavirus strategy,
143
382737
2684
06:25
at taiwancanhelp.us.
144
385445
1719
06:27
Thank you.
145
387188
1150
06:31
DB: That's incredible.
146
391109
1674
06:32
And I love this "humor versus rumor."
147
392807
4426
06:38
The problem here in the US, perhaps,
148
398219
2023
06:40
is that the rumors seem to travel faster than any response,
149
400266
5149
06:45
whether humorous or not.
150
405439
1206
06:46
How do you defeat that aspect in Taiwan?
151
406669
3665
06:51
AT: Yeah, we found that, of course,
152
411527
2143
06:53
humor implicitly means there is a sublimation
153
413694
3646
06:57
of upsetness, of outrage.
154
417364
3570
07:00
And so as you see, for example, in our premier's example,
155
420958
3976
07:04
he makes fun of himself.
156
424958
2071
07:07
He doesn't make a joke at the expense of other people.
157
427053
3796
07:10
And this was the key.
158
430873
1484
07:12
Because people think it hilarious,
159
432381
1905
07:14
they share it,
160
434310
1150
07:15
but with no malicious or toxic intentions.
161
435484
2944
07:18
People remember the actual payload,
162
438452
1926
07:20
that table about materials used to produce masks,
163
440402
2953
07:23
much more easily.
164
443379
1171
07:24
If they make a joke that excludes parts of the society,
165
444574
4356
07:28
of course, that part of society will feel outraged
166
448954
2596
07:31
and we will end up creating more divisiveness,
167
451574
2333
07:33
rather than prosocial behavior.
168
453931
2143
07:36
So the humor at no expense,
169
456098
3312
07:39
not excluding any part of society,
170
459434
2710
07:42
I think that was the key.
171
462168
1667
07:45
DB: It's also incredible
172
465847
1197
07:47
because Taiwan has such close ties to the origin point of this.
173
467068
5786
07:52
AT: PRC, yes.
174
472878
1167
07:54
DB: The mainland.
175
474069
1166
07:55
So given those close economic ties,
176
475259
3945
07:59
how do you survive that kind of disruption?
177
479228
3793
08:04
AT: Yeah, I mean, at this moment,
178
484919
3506
08:08
it's been almost a month now with no local confirmed cases,
179
488449
3438
08:11
so we're doing fine.
180
491911
1230
08:13
And what we are doing, essentially,
181
493165
1667
08:14
is just to respond faster than pretty much anyone.
182
494856
3785
08:18
We started responding last year,
183
498665
2595
08:21
whereas pretty much everybody else started responding this year.
184
501284
3340
08:24
We tried to warn the world last year, but, anyway.
185
504648
3261
08:27
So in any case,
186
507933
1153
08:29
the point here is that if you start early enough,
187
509110
2738
08:31
you get to make sure that the border control
188
511872
3483
08:35
is the main point where you quarantine all the returning residents and so on,
189
515379
5444
08:40
instead of waiting until the community spread stage,
190
520847
2939
08:43
where even more human-right invading techniques
191
523810
3862
08:47
would probably have to be deployed one way or the other.
192
527696
2706
08:50
And so in Taiwan, we've not declared an emergency situation.
193
530426
3256
08:53
We're firmly under the constitutional law.
194
533706
2579
08:56
Because of that, every measure the administration is taking
195
536309
2786
08:59
is also applicable in non-coronavirus times.
196
539119
2490
09:01
And this forces us to innovate.
197
541633
2071
09:03
Much as the idea of "we are an open liberal democracy"
198
543728
4264
09:08
prevented us from doing takedowns.
199
548016
2302
09:10
And therefore, we have to innovate of humor versus rumor,
200
550342
3190
09:13
because the easy path, the takedown of online speech,
201
553556
2712
09:16
is not accessible to us.
202
556292
1991
09:18
Our design criteria, which is no lockdowns,
203
558307
3174
09:21
also prevented us from doing any, you know,
204
561505
3627
09:25
very invasive privacy encroaching response system.
205
565156
3351
09:28
So we have to innovate at the border,
206
568531
1858
09:30
and make sure that we have a sufficient number of, for example,
207
570413
2983
09:33
quarantine hotels or the so-called "digital fences,"
208
573420
2452
09:35
where your phone is basically connected to the nearby telecoms,
209
575896
4633
09:40
and they make sure that if they go out of the 15-meter or so radius,
210
580553
4794
09:45
an SMS is sent to the local household managers or police and so on.
211
585371
4743
09:50
But because we focus all these measures at the border,
212
590138
2914
09:53
the vast majority of people live a normal life.
213
593076
2610
09:57
DB: Let's talk about that a little bit.
214
597267
1863
09:59
So walk me through the digital tools
215
599154
2343
10:01
and how they were applied to COVID.
216
601521
2698
10:05
AT: Yes.
217
605196
1166
10:06
So there's three parts that I just outlined.
218
606386
3405
10:09
The first one is the collective intelligence system.
219
609815
3072
10:12
Through online spaces
220
612911
1491
10:14
that we design to be devoid of Reply buttons,
221
614426
3961
10:18
because we see that, when there's Reply buttons,
222
618411
2817
10:21
people focus on each other's face part, not the book part,
223
621252
4196
10:25
and without "Reply" buttons,
224
625472
1534
10:27
you can get collective intelligence
225
627030
2055
10:29
working out their rough consensus of where the direction is going
226
629109
5047
10:34
with the response strategies.
227
634180
1603
10:35
So we use a lot of new technologies,
228
635807
1849
10:37
such as Polis,
229
637680
1151
10:38
which is essentially a forum that lets you upvote and downvote
230
638855
3618
10:42
each other's feelings,
231
642497
2437
10:44
but with real-time clustering,
232
644958
1968
10:46
so that if you go to cohack.tw,
233
646950
2691
10:49
you see six such conversations,
234
649665
2067
10:51
talking about how to protect the most vulnerable people,
235
651756
2965
10:54
how to make a smooth transition,
236
654745
1603
10:56
how to make a fair distribution of supplies and so on.
237
656372
3443
10:59
And people are free to voice their ideas,
238
659839
2460
11:02
and upvote and downvote each other's ideas.
239
662323
2302
11:04
But the trick is that we show people the main divisive points,
240
664649
3785
11:08
and the main consensual points,
241
668458
1500
11:09
and we respond only to the ideas
242
669982
2294
11:12
that can convince all the different opinion groups.
243
672300
2753
11:15
So people are encouraged to post more eclectic, more nuanced ideas
244
675077
3940
11:19
and they discover, at the end of this consultation,
245
679041
3285
11:22
that everybody, actually, agrees with most things,
246
682350
2334
11:24
with most of their neighbors on most of the issues.
247
684708
2698
11:27
And that is what we call the social mandate,
248
687430
2465
11:29
or the democratic mandate,
249
689919
1420
11:31
that then informs our development of the counter-coronavirus strategy
250
691363
3936
11:35
and helping the world with such tools.
251
695323
2588
11:37
And so this is the first part,
252
697935
1462
11:39
it's called listening at scale for rough consensus.
253
699421
3055
11:42
The second part I already covered is the distribute ledger,
254
702500
3540
11:46
where everybody can go to a nearby pharmacy,
255
706064
2242
11:48
present their NHI card, buy nine masks, or 10 if you're a child,
256
708330
3699
11:52
and see the stock level of that pharmacy on their phone
257
712053
3270
11:55
actually decreasing by nine or 10 in a couple of minutes.
258
715347
3682
11:59
And if they grow by nine or 10,
259
719053
2088
12:01
of course, you call the 1922,
260
721165
1488
12:02
and report something fishy is going on.
261
722677
2210
12:04
But this is participatory accountability.
262
724911
2330
12:07
This is published every 30 seconds.
263
727265
1733
12:09
So everybody holds each other accountable,
264
729022
2047
12:11
and that massively increases trust.
265
731093
2103
12:13
And finally, the third one, the humor versus rumor,
266
733220
3337
12:16
I think the important thing to see here
267
736581
2822
12:19
is that wherever there's a trending disinformation or conspiracy theory,
268
739427
3540
12:22
you respond to it with a humorous package
269
742991
2419
12:25
within two hours.
270
745434
1262
12:26
We have discovered, if we respond within two hours,
271
746720
2767
12:29
then more people see the vaccination than the conspiracy theory.
272
749511
4032
12:33
But if you respond four hours or a day afterwards,
273
753567
3688
12:37
then that's a lost cause.
274
757279
1193
12:38
You can't really counter that using humor anymore,
275
758496
3271
12:41
you have to invite the person who spread those messages
276
761791
3365
12:45
into cocreation workshops.
277
765180
1603
12:46
But we're OK with that, too.
278
766807
1800
12:49
DB: Your speed is incredible.
279
769807
1469
12:51
I see Whitney has joined us with some questions.
280
771300
3036
12:54
Whitney Pennington Rodgers: That's right,
281
774790
2066
12:56
we have a few coming in already from the audience.
282
776880
2354
12:59
Hi there, Audrey.
283
779258
1182
13:00
And we'll start with one from our community member Michael Backes.
284
780464
3676
13:04
He asks how long has humor versus rumor been a strategy
285
784164
3953
13:08
that you've implemented.
286
788141
1192
13:09
Excuse me.
287
789357
1151
13:10
"How long has humor versus rumor strategy been implemented?
288
790532
2786
13:13
Were comedians consulted to make the humor?"
289
793342
3714
13:17
AT: Yes, definitely.
290
797713
1191
13:18
Comedians are our most cherished colleagues.
291
798928
3463
13:22
And each and every ministry has a team of what we call participation officers
292
802415
5107
13:27
in charge of engaging with trending topics.
293
807546
3737
13:31
And it's a more than 100 people-strong team now.
294
811307
2724
13:34
We meet every month and also every couple of weeks
295
814055
2568
13:36
on specific topics.
296
816647
1825
13:38
It's been like that since late 2016,
297
818496
4491
13:43
but it's not until our previous spokesperson, Kolas Yotaka,
298
823011
4161
13:47
joined about a year and a half ago,
299
827196
2666
13:49
do the professional comedians get to the team.
300
829886
2532
13:52
Previously, this was more about inviting the people who post, you know,
301
832442
6217
13:58
quotes like "Our tax filing system is explosively hostile,"
302
838683
4667
14:03
and gets trending,
303
843374
1152
14:04
and previously, the POs just invited those people.
304
844550
2942
14:07
Everybody who complains
305
847516
1533
14:09
about the finance minister's tax-filing experience
306
849073
2339
14:11
gets invited to the cocreation of that tax filing experience.
307
851436
2975
14:14
So previously, it was that.
308
854435
1311
14:15
But Kolas Yotaka and the premier Su Tseng-chang said,
309
855770
3084
14:18
wouldn't it be much better and reach more people
310
858878
2254
14:21
if we add some dogs to it or cat's pictures to it?
311
861156
3215
14:24
And that's been around for a year and a half.
312
864395
2485
14:28
WPR: Definitely, I think it makes a lot of difference, just even seeing them
313
868720
3600
14:32
without being part of the thought process behind that.
314
872344
3027
14:35
And we have another question here from G. Ryan Ansin.
315
875395
4530
14:40
He asks, "What would you rank the level of trust
316
880990
2761
14:43
your community had before the pandemic,
317
883775
1920
14:45
in order for the government to have a chance
318
885719
2127
14:47
at properly controlling this crisis?"
319
887870
2467
14:51
AT: I would say that a community trusts each other.
320
891310
2713
14:54
And that is the main point of digital democracy.
321
894047
2740
14:56
This is not about people trusting the government more.
322
896811
2758
14:59
This is about the government trusting the citizens more,
323
899593
3008
15:02
making the state transparent to the citizen,
324
902625
2468
15:05
not the citizen transparent to the state,
325
905117
1984
15:07
which would be some other regime.
326
907125
1682
15:08
So making the state transparent to the citizens
327
908831
2215
15:11
doesn't always elicit more trust,
328
911070
2229
15:13
because you may see something wrong, something missing,
329
913323
2659
15:16
something exclusively hostile to its user experience,
330
916006
2912
15:18
an so on, of the state.
331
918942
1524
15:20
So it doesn't necessarily lead to more trust from the government.
332
920490
3261
15:23
Sorry, from the citizen to the government.
333
923775
2024
15:25
But it always leads to more trust between the social sector stakeholders.
334
925823
3777
15:29
So I would say the level of trust between the people
335
929624
3097
15:32
who are working on, for example,
336
932745
2532
15:35
medical officers,
337
935301
2326
15:37
and people who are working with the pandemic responses,
338
937651
3332
15:41
people who manufacture medical masks,
339
941007
1872
15:42
and so on,
340
942903
1166
15:44
all these people,
341
944093
1166
15:45
the trust level between them is very high.
342
945283
2160
15:47
And not necessarily they trust the government.
343
947467
2730
15:50
But we don't need that for a successful response.
344
950221
3443
15:53
If you ask a random person on the street,
345
953688
2016
15:55
they will say Taiwan is performing so well because of the people.
346
955728
3967
15:59
When the CECC tells us to wear the mask,
347
959719
2175
16:01
we wear the mask.
348
961918
1168
16:03
When the CECC tells us not to wear a mask,
349
963110
2053
16:05
like, if you are keeping physical distance,
350
965187
2016
16:07
we wear a mask anyway.
351
967227
1594
16:08
And so because of that,
352
968845
1382
16:10
I think it's the social sector's trust between those different stakeholders
353
970251
4049
16:14
that's the key to the response.
354
974324
1921
16:18
WPR: I will come back shortly with more questions,
355
978094
2485
16:20
but I'll leave you guys to continue your conversation.
356
980603
2729
16:23
AT: Awesome.
357
983356
1467
16:24
DB: Well, clearly, part of that trust in government
358
984847
3933
16:28
was maybe not there in 2014 during the Sunflower Movement.
359
988804
5630
16:34
So talk to me about that
360
994458
2460
16:36
and how that led to this, kind of, digital transformation.
361
996942
5086
16:43
AT: Indeed.
362
1003535
1168
16:44
Before March 2014, if you asked a random person on the street in Taiwan,
363
1004727
6249
16:51
like, whether it's possible for a minister -- that's me --
364
1011000
4355
16:55
to have their office in a park, literally a park,
365
1015379
3530
16:58
anyone can walk in and talk to me for 40 minutes at a time,
366
1018933
3312
17:02
I'm currently in that park, the Social Innovation Lab,
367
1022269
2849
17:05
they would say that this is crazy, right?
368
1025142
2016
17:07
No public officials work like that.
369
1027182
2236
17:09
But that was because on March 18, 2014,
370
1029442
3699
17:13
hundreds of young activists, most of them college students,
371
1033165
2785
17:15
occupied the legislature
372
1035974
1492
17:17
to express their profound opposition to a trade pact with Beijing
373
1037490
3718
17:21
under consideration,
374
1041232
1599
17:22
and the secretive manner in which it was pushed through the parliament
375
1042855
3806
17:26
by Kuomintang, the ruling party at the time.
376
1046685
2191
17:28
And so the protesters demanded, very simply,
377
1048900
2103
17:31
that the pact be scraped,
378
1051027
1542
17:32
and the government to institute a more transparent ratification process.
379
1052593
3874
17:36
And that drew widespread public support.
380
1056783
2112
17:38
It ended a little more than three weeks later,
381
1058919
2698
17:41
after the government promised and agreed
382
1061641
2968
17:44
on the four demands [unclear] of legislative oversight.
383
1064633
4754
17:49
A poll released after the occupation
384
1069411
2150
17:51
showed that more than 75 percent remained dissatisfied
385
1071585
3805
17:55
with the ruling government,
386
1075414
1346
17:56
illustrating the crisis of trust that was caused by a trade deal dispute.
387
1076784
4092
18:00
And to heal this rift and communicate better
388
1080900
2409
18:03
with everyday citizens,
389
1083333
1211
18:04
the administration reached out to the people who supported the occupiers,
390
1084568
3930
18:08
for example, the g0v community,
391
1088522
2785
18:11
which has been seeking to improve government transparency
392
1091331
2675
18:14
through the creation of open-source tools.
393
1094030
2070
18:16
And so, Jaclyn Tsai, a government minister at the time,
394
1096124
3112
18:19
attended our hackathon
395
1099260
1452
18:20
and proposed the establishment of novel platforms
396
1100736
3349
18:24
with the online community to exchange policy ideas.
397
1104109
3190
18:27
And an experiment was born called vTaiwan,
398
1107323
3013
18:30
that pioneerly used tools such as Polis,
399
1110360
2714
18:33
that allows for "agree" or "disagree" with no Reply button,
400
1113098
3416
18:36
that gets people's rough consensus on issues such as crowdfunding,
401
1116538
4388
18:40
equity-based crowdfunding, to be precise,
402
1120950
2437
18:43
teleworking and many other cyber-related legislation,
403
1123411
3420
18:46
of which there is no existing unions or associations.
404
1126855
2976
18:49
And it proved to be very successful.
405
1129855
1972
18:51
They solved the Uber problem, for example,
406
1131851
3104
18:54
and by now, you can call an Uber --
407
1134979
1857
18:56
I just called an Uber this week --
408
1136860
2796
18:59
but in any case, they are operating as taxis.
409
1139680
2898
19:02
They set up a local taxi company called Q Taxi,
410
1142602
3206
19:05
and that was because on the platform, people cared about insurance,
411
1145832
3837
19:09
they care about registration,
412
1149693
1450
19:11
they care about all the sort of, protection of the passengers, and so on.
413
1151167
4114
19:15
So we changed the taxi regulations,
414
1155305
2629
19:17
and now Uber is just another taxi company
415
1157958
2873
19:20
along with the other co-ops.
416
1160855
2000
19:23
DB: So you're actually, in a way,
417
1163871
2138
19:26
crowdsourcing laws that, well, then become laws.
418
1166033
4780
19:31
AT: Yeah, learn more at crowd.law.
419
1171464
2571
19:34
It's a real website.
420
1174059
1408
19:36
DB: So, some might say that this seems easier,
421
1176568
4115
19:40
because Taiwan is an island,
422
1180707
2826
19:43
that maybe helps you control COVID,
423
1183557
3187
19:46
helps promote social cohesion,
424
1186768
2139
19:48
maybe it's a smaller country than some.
425
1188931
4111
19:53
Do you think that this could be scaled beyond Taiwan?
426
1193066
3734
19:58
AT: Well, first of all,
427
1198182
1246
19:59
23 million people is still quite some people.
428
1199452
2746
20:02
It's not a city,
429
1202222
1538
20:03
as some usually say, you know, "Taiwan is a city-state."
430
1203784
4499
20:08
Well, 23 million people, not quite a city-state.
431
1208307
3696
20:12
And what I'm trying to get at,
432
1212027
1595
20:13
is that the high population density and a variety of cultures --
433
1213646
5039
20:18
we have more than 20 national languages --
434
1218709
2608
20:21
doesn't necessarily lead to social cohesion, as you said.
435
1221341
4865
20:26
Rather, I think, this is the humbleness of all the ministers
436
1226230
5065
20:31
in the counter-coronavirus response.
437
1231319
2734
20:34
They all took on an attitude of "So we learned about SARS" --
438
1234077
5195
20:39
many of them were in charge of the SARS back then,
439
1239296
3189
20:42
but that was classical epidemiology.
440
1242509
2248
20:44
This is SARS 2.0, it has different characteristics.
441
1244781
3129
20:47
And the tools that we use are very different,
442
1247934
2143
20:50
because of the digital transformation.
443
1250101
1833
20:51
And so we are in it to learn together with the citizens.
444
1251958
3362
20:55
Our vice president at the time,
445
1255344
2984
20:58
Dr. Chen Chien-jen, an academician,
446
1258352
2103
21:00
literally wrote the textbook on epidemiology.
447
1260479
3201
21:03
However, he still says,
448
1263704
2343
21:06
"You know, what I'm going to do is record an online MOOC,
449
1266071
3181
21:09
a crash course on epidemiology,
450
1269276
1968
21:11
that shares with,
451
1271268
1223
21:12
I think, more than 20,00 people enrolled the first day,
452
1272515
2618
21:15
I was among them,
453
1275157
1172
21:16
to learn about important ideas,
454
1276353
1478
21:17
like the R0 and the basic transmission
455
1277855
4246
21:22
and how the various different measures work,
456
1282125
2476
21:24
and then they asked people to innovate.
457
1284625
2176
21:26
If you think of a new way that the vice president did not think of,
458
1286825
4584
21:31
just call 1922,
459
1291433
1286
21:32
and your idea will become the next day's press conference.
460
1292743
3158
21:35
And this is this colearning strategy,
461
1295925
2644
21:38
I think, that more than anything enabled the social cohesion,
462
1298593
4143
21:42
as you speak.
463
1302760
1207
21:43
But this is more of a robust civil society than the uniformity.
464
1303991
3841
21:47
There's no uniformity at all in Taiwan,
465
1307856
2474
21:50
everybody is entitled to their ideas,
466
1310354
2085
21:52
and all the social innovations,
467
1312463
1505
21:53
ranging from using a traditional rice cooker
468
1313992
2476
21:56
to revitalize, to disinfect the mask,
469
1316492
2891
21:59
to pink medical mask, and so on,
470
1319407
1821
22:01
there's all variety of very interesting ideas
471
1321252
2285
22:03
that get amplified by the daily press conference.
472
1323561
2675
22:07
DB: That's beautiful.
473
1327685
2482
22:10
Now -- oh, Whitney is back,
474
1330748
1850
22:12
so I will let her ask the next question.
475
1332622
2278
22:16
WPR: Sure, we're having some more questions come in.
476
1336293
2460
22:18
One from our community member Aria Bendix.
477
1338777
2865
22:21
Aria asked, "How do you ensure that digital campaigns act quickly
478
1341666
4362
22:26
without sacrificing accuracy?
479
1346052
1777
22:27
In the US, there was a fear of inciting panic about COVID-19
480
1347853
3756
22:31
in early January."
481
1351633
1600
22:34
AT: This is a great question.
482
1354684
2095
22:36
So most of the scientific ideas about the COVID are evolving, right?
483
1356803
6930
22:44
The efficacy of masks, for example, is a very good example,
484
1364046
4528
22:48
because the different characteristics of previous respiratory diseases
485
1368598
5345
22:53
respond differently to the facial mask.
486
1373967
2312
22:56
And so, our digital campaigns
487
1376303
1952
22:58
focus on the idea of getting the rough consensus through.
488
1378279
4182
23:02
So basically, it's a reflection of the society,
489
1382485
2249
23:04
through Polis, through Slido, through the joint platform,
490
1384758
3827
23:08
the various tools that vTaiwan has prototyped,
491
1388609
2459
23:11
we know that people are feeling a rough consensus about things
492
1391092
3499
23:14
and we're responding to the society, saying,
493
1394615
2886
23:17
"This is what you all feel
494
1397525
1933
23:19
and this is what we're doing to respond to your feelings.
495
1399482
2794
23:22
And the scientific consensus is still developing,
496
1402300
2745
23:25
but we know, for example,
497
1405069
1405
23:26
people feel that wearing a mask mostly protects you,
498
1406498
3770
23:30
because it reminds you to not touch your face
499
1410292
2571
23:32
and wash your hands properly."
500
1412887
1562
23:34
And these, regardless of everything else,
501
1414473
2295
23:36
are the two things that everybody agrees with.
502
1416792
2158
23:38
So we just capitalize on that and say,
503
1418974
2182
23:41
"OK, wash your hands properly,
504
1421180
1905
23:43
and don't touch your face,
505
1423109
1286
23:44
and wearing a mask reminds you of that."
506
1424419
1964
23:46
And that lets us cut through
507
1426407
1500
23:47
the kind of, very ideologically charged debates
508
1427931
3214
23:51
and focus on what people generally resonate with one another.
509
1431169
4003
23:55
And that's how we act quickly without sacrificing scientific accuracy.
510
1435196
3595
24:01
WPR: And this next question sort of feels connected to this as well.
511
1441012
3524
24:04
It's a question from an anonymous community member.
512
1444560
2985
24:07
"Pragmatically, do you think any of your policies
513
1447569
2322
24:09
could be applied in the United States under the current Trump administration?"
514
1449915
3849
24:13
AT: Quite a few, actually.
515
1453788
1254
24:15
We work with many states in the US and abroad
516
1455066
4678
24:19
on what we call "epicenter to epicenter diplomacy." (Laughs)
517
1459768
5579
24:25
So what we're doing essentially is,
518
1465371
2905
24:28
for example, there was a chat bot in Taiwan
519
1468300
2179
24:30
that lets you, but especially people under home quarantine,
520
1470503
3357
24:33
to ask the chat bot anything.
521
1473884
2066
24:35
And if there is a scientific adviser
522
1475974
2769
24:38
who already wrote a frequently asked question,
523
1478767
2378
24:41
the chat bot just responds with that,
524
1481169
1769
24:42
but otherwise, they will call the science advisory board
525
1482962
3390
24:46
and write an accessible response to that,
526
1486376
3019
24:49
and the spokesdog would translate that into a cute dog meme.
527
1489419
4007
24:53
And so this feedback cycle
528
1493450
1794
24:55
of people very easily accessing, finding, and asking a scientist,
529
1495268
4190
24:59
and an open API that allows for voice assistance
530
1499482
2878
25:02
and other third-party developers to get through it,
531
1502384
3944
25:06
resonates with many US states,
532
1506352
2170
25:08
and I think many of them are implementing it.
533
1508546
2911
25:11
And before the World Health Assembly, I think three days before,
534
1511481
3871
25:15
we held a 14 countries [unclear] lateral meeting,
535
1515376
4539
25:19
kind of, pre-WHA,
536
1519939
1366
25:21
where we shared many small, like, quick wins like this.
537
1521329
3329
25:24
And I think many jurisdictions took some of that,
538
1524682
3182
25:27
including the humor versus rumor.
539
1527888
1707
25:29
Many of them said
540
1529619
1166
25:30
that they're going to recruit comedians now.
541
1530809
2224
25:33
WPR: (Laughs) I love that.
542
1533473
1695
25:35
DB: I hope so.
543
1535192
1376
25:36
WPR: I hope so too.
544
1536592
1793
25:38
And we have one more question, which is actually a follow-up,
545
1538409
2875
25:41
from Michael Backes, who asked a question earlier.
546
1541308
2634
25:43
"Does the Ministry plan to publish their plans in a white paper?"
547
1543966
3056
25:47
Sounds like you're already sharing your plans with folks,
548
1547046
2758
25:49
but do you have a plan to put it out on paper?
549
1549828
2355
25:52
AT: Of course.
550
1552207
1206
25:53
Yeah, and multiple white papers.
551
1553437
1602
25:55
So if you go to taiwancanhelp.us,
552
1555063
4406
25:59
that is where most of our strategy is,
553
1559493
2600
26:02
and that website is actually crowdsourced as well,
554
1562117
3536
26:05
and it shows that more than five million now, I think,
555
1565677
2899
26:08
medical masks donated to the humanitarian aid.
556
1568600
3648
26:12
It's also crowdsourced.
557
1572272
1496
26:13
People who have some masks in their homes,
558
1573792
3211
26:17
who did not collect the rationed masks,
559
1577027
2999
26:20
they can use an app, say,
560
1580050
1278
26:21
"I want to dedicate this to international humanitarian aid,"
561
1581352
3466
26:24
and half of them choose to publish their names,
562
1584842
3142
26:28
so you can also see the names of people who participated in this.
563
1588008
3299
26:31
And there's also an "Ask Taiwan Anything" website,
564
1591331
2709
26:34
(Laughs)
565
1594064
1497
26:35
at fightcovid.edu.tw,
566
1595585
3211
26:38
that outlines, in white paper form, all the response strategies,
567
1598820
3689
26:42
so check those out.
568
1602533
1500
26:45
WPR: Great.
569
1605145
1162
26:46
Well, I will disappear and be back later with some other questions.
570
1606331
3351
26:50
DB: A blizzard of white papers, if you will.
571
1610927
3229
26:54
I'd like to turn the focus on you a little bit.
572
1614180
4545
26:58
How does a conservative anarchist become a digital minister?
573
1618749
5584
27:05
AT: Yeah, by occupying the parliament, and through that.
574
1625466
3484
27:08
(Laughs)
575
1628974
1001
27:09
More interestingly,
576
1629999
1173
27:11
I would say that I go working with the government,
577
1631196
4024
27:15
but never for the government.
578
1635244
1846
27:17
And I work with the people, not for the people.
579
1637114
2666
27:19
I'm like this Lagrange point
580
1639804
2664
27:22
between the people's movements on one side
581
1642492
2728
27:25
and the government on the other side.
582
1645244
2321
27:28
Sometimes right in the middle,
583
1648395
1770
27:30
trying to do some coach or translation work.
584
1650189
2174
27:32
Sometimes in a kind of triangle point,
585
1652387
2571
27:34
trying to supply both sides with tools for prosocial communication.
586
1654982
5317
27:40
But always with this idea
587
1660323
2578
27:42
of getting the shared values out of different positions,
588
1662925
4097
27:47
out of varied positions.
589
1667046
1531
27:48
Because all too often,
590
1668601
1252
27:49
democracy is built as a showdown between opposing values.
591
1669877
3446
27:53
But in the pandemic, in the infodemic,
592
1673347
3032
27:56
in climate change,
593
1676403
1412
27:57
in many of those structural issues,
594
1677839
2079
27:59
the virus or carbon dioxide doesn't sit down and negotiate with you.
595
1679942
4259
28:04
It's a structural issue that requires common values
596
1684225
3682
28:07
built out of different positions.
597
1687931
1638
28:09
And so that is why my working principle is radical transparency.
598
1689593
5432
28:15
Every conversation, including this one,
599
1695049
2179
28:17
is on the record,
600
1697252
1173
28:18
including the internal meetings that I hold.
601
1698449
2157
28:20
So you can see all the different meeting transcripts
602
1700630
3365
28:24
in my YouTube channel, in the SayIt platform,
603
1704019
2936
28:26
where people can see, after I became digital minister,
604
1706979
2569
28:29
I held 1,300 meetings with more than 5,000 speakers,
605
1709572
3483
28:33
with more than 260,000 utterances.
606
1713079
3712
28:36
And every one of them has a URL
607
1716815
2811
28:39
that becomes a social object that people can have a conversation on.
608
1719650
3368
28:43
And because of that,
609
1723042
1222
28:44
for example, when Uber's David Plouffe visited me to lobby for Uber,
610
1724288
5543
28:49
because of radical transparency,
611
1729855
1546
28:51
he is very much aware of that,
612
1731425
2200
28:53
and so he made all the arguments based on public good,
613
1733649
2552
28:56
based on sustainability, and things like that,
614
1736225
2209
28:58
because he knows that the other sides would see his positions
615
1738458
3937
29:02
very clearly and transparently.
616
1742419
1825
29:04
So that encourages people to add on each other's argument,
617
1744268
3127
29:07
instead of attacking each other's person,
618
1747419
2893
29:10
you know, credits and things like that.
619
1750336
1968
29:12
And so I think that, more than anything,
620
1752328
1921
29:14
is the main principle of conserving the anarchism of the internet,
621
1754273
4295
29:18
which is about, you know,
622
1758592
1217
29:19
nobody can force anyone to hook to the internet,
623
1759833
3327
29:23
or to adhere to a new internet protocol.
624
1763184
2357
29:25
Everything has to be done using rough consensus and running code.
625
1765565
3551
29:30
DB: I wish you had more counterparts all around the world.
626
1770649
3341
29:34
Maybe you wish you had more counterparts all around the world.
627
1774014
2953
29:37
AT: That's why these ideas are worth spreading.
628
1777338
2362
29:40
DB: There you go.
629
1780076
1174
29:41
So one of the challenges that might arise with some of these digital tools
630
1781274
6085
29:47
is access.
631
1787383
1340
29:48
How do you approach that part of it
632
1788747
2396
29:51
for folks maybe who don't have the best broadband connection
633
1791167
4242
29:55
or the latest mobile phone or whatever it might be that's required?
634
1795433
5157
30:01
AT: Well, anywhere in Taiwan,
635
1801569
1695
30:03
even on the top of Taiwan, almost 4,000 meters high,
636
1803288
3490
30:06
the Saviah, or the Jade Mountain,
637
1806802
2050
30:08
you're guaranteed to have 10 megabits per second
638
1808876
3167
30:12
over 4G or fiber or cable,
639
1812067
2224
30:14
with just 16 US dollars a month, an unlimited plan.
640
1814315
4584
30:18
And actually, on the top of the mountain, it's faster,
641
1818923
3278
30:22
fewer people use that bandwidth.
642
1822225
1984
30:24
And if you don't, it's my fault.
643
1824233
1796
30:26
It's personally my fault.
644
1826053
1230
30:27
In Taiwan, we have broadband as a human right.
645
1827307
2651
30:29
And so when we're deploying 5G,
646
1829982
1952
30:31
we're looking at places where the 4G has the weakest signal,
647
1831958
3167
30:35
and we begin with those places in our 5G deployment.
648
1835149
3865
30:39
And only by deploying broadband as a human right
649
1839038
3063
30:42
can we say that this is for everybody.
650
1842125
2943
30:45
That digital democracy actually strengthens democracy.
651
1845092
3341
30:48
Otherwise, we would be excluding parts of the society.
652
1848457
3126
30:51
And this also applies to, for example,
653
1851607
1852
30:53
you can go to a local digital opportunity center
654
1853483
2356
30:55
to rent a tablet that's guaranteed
655
1855863
1780
30:57
to be manufactured in the past three years,
656
1857667
2301
30:59
and things like that,
657
1859992
1197
31:01
to enable, also, the different digital access
658
1861213
2609
31:03
by the digital opportunity centers, universities and schools,
659
1863846
4255
31:08
and public libraries, very important.
660
1868125
2253
31:10
And if people who prefer to talk in their town hall,
661
1870402
3223
31:13
I personally go to that town hall with a 360 recorder,
662
1873649
4536
31:18
and livestream that to Taipei and to other municipalities,
663
1878209
3262
31:21
where the central government's public servants can join
664
1881495
2606
31:24
in a connected room style,
665
1884125
1700
31:25
but listening to the local people who set the agenda.
666
1885849
2660
31:28
So people still do face-to-face meetings,
667
1888533
2612
31:31
we're not doing this to replace face-to-face meetings.
668
1891169
2564
31:33
We're bringing more stakeholders
669
1893757
1765
31:35
from central government in the local town halls,
670
1895546
2587
31:38
and we're amplifying their voices
671
1898157
1921
31:40
by making sure the transcripts, the mind maps, and things like that
672
1900102
3183
31:43
are spread through the internet in real time,
673
1903309
2657
31:45
but we don't ever ask the elderly to, say,
674
1905990
2786
31:48
"Oh, you have to learn typing, otherwise you don't do democracy."
675
1908800
3118
31:51
It's not our style.
676
1911942
1167
31:53
But that requires broadband.
677
1913133
1340
31:54
Because if you don't have broadband, but only a very limited bandwidth,
678
1914497
3463
31:57
you are forced to use text-based communication.
679
1917984
2212
32:00
DB: That's right.
680
1920521
1231
32:01
Well, with access, of course,
681
1921776
1441
32:03
comes access for folks who maybe will misuse the platform.
682
1923241
4327
32:07
You talked a little bit about disinformation
683
1927592
2514
32:10
and using humor to beat rumor.
684
1930130
1738
32:11
But sometimes, disinformation is more weaponized.
685
1931892
4624
32:16
How do you combat those kinds of attacks, really?
686
1936919
4542
32:22
AT: Right, so you mean malinformation, then.
687
1942101
2682
32:24
So essentially, information designed to cause intentional public harm.
688
1944807
6061
32:30
And that's no laughing matter.
689
1950892
3285
32:34
So for that, we have an idea called "notice and public notice."
690
1954201
4511
32:38
So this is a Reuters photo,
691
1958736
2381
32:41
and I will read the original caption.
692
1961141
2214
32:43
The original caption says
693
1963379
1254
32:44
"A teenage extradition bill protester in Hong Kong
694
1964657
3315
32:47
is seen during a march to demand democracy and political reform in Hong Kong."
695
1967996
4167
32:52
OK, a very neutral title by the Reuters.
696
1972187
2657
32:54
But there was a spreading of malinformation
697
1974868
4103
32:58
back last November,
698
1978995
1854
33:00
just leading to our presidential election,
699
1980873
2031
33:02
that shows something else entirely.
700
1982928
2086
33:05
This is the same photo -- that says
701
1985038
2538
33:07
"This 13-year-old thug bought new iPhones,
702
1987600
2983
33:10
game consoles and brand-name sports shoes,
703
1990607
2047
33:12
and recruiting his brothers to murder police
704
1992678
2715
33:15
and collect 200,000 dollars."
705
1995417
3203
33:18
And this, of course, is a weapon designed to sow discord,
706
1998644
3817
33:22
and to elicit in Taiwan's voters a kind of distaste for Hong Kong.
707
2002485
5410
33:27
And because they know that this is the main issue.
708
2007919
3123
33:31
And had we resorted to takedowns,
709
2011066
2619
33:33
that will not work,
710
2013709
1206
33:34
because that would only evoke more outrage.
711
2014939
2151
33:37
So we didn't do a takedown.
712
2017114
1431
33:38
Instead, we worked with the fact checkers
713
2018569
2041
33:40
and professional journalists
714
2020634
1388
33:42
to attribute this original message back to the first day that it was posted.
715
2022046
5179
33:47
And it came from Zhongyang Zhengfawei.
716
2027249
2431
33:49
That is the main political and legal unit of the central party,
717
2029704
6746
33:56
in the Central Communist Party, in CCP.
718
2036474
2182
33:58
And we know that it's their Weibo account that first did this new caption.
719
2038680
5373
34:04
So we sent out a public notice
720
2044077
2175
34:06
and with the partners in social media companies,
721
2046276
2357
34:08
pretty much all of them,
722
2048657
1524
34:10
they just put this very small reminder
723
2050205
2734
34:12
next to each time that this is shared with the wrong caption,
724
2052963
3538
34:16
that says "This actually came from the central propaganda unit
725
2056525
3936
34:20
of the CCP.
726
2060485
1189
34:21
Click here to learn more. To learn about the whole story."
727
2061698
2896
34:24
And that, we found, that has worked,
728
2064618
2350
34:26
because people understand this is then not a news material.
729
2066992
3544
34:30
This is rather an appropriation of Reuters' news material
730
2070560
3555
34:34
and a copyright infringement
731
2074139
1652
34:35
and I think that's part of the [unclear].
732
2075815
2246
34:38
In any case, the point is that when people understand
733
2078085
2658
34:40
that this is an intentional narrative,
734
2080767
1831
34:42
they won't just randomly share it.
735
2082622
1928
34:44
They may share it, but with a comment that says
736
2084574
2563
34:47
"This is what the Zhongyang Zhengfawei is trying to do to our democracy."
737
2087161
5378
34:54
DB: Seems like some of the global social media companies
738
2094182
4292
34:58
could learn something from notice and public notice.
739
2098498
4036
35:02
AT: Public notice, that's right.
740
2102558
1598
35:04
DB: What advice would you have
741
2104180
2859
35:07
for the Twitters and Facebooks and LINEs and WhatsApps,
742
2107063
5313
35:12
and you name it, of the world?
743
2112400
2334
35:16
AT: Yeah.
744
2116203
1183
35:17
So, just before our election,
745
2117410
3246
35:20
we said to all of them
746
2120680
1795
35:22
that we're not making a law to kind of punish them.
747
2122499
5186
35:27
However, we're sharing this very simple fact
748
2127709
3055
35:30
that there is this norm in Taiwan
749
2130788
2175
35:32
that we even have a separate branch of the government,
750
2132987
2558
35:35
the control branch,
751
2135569
1199
35:36
that published the campaign donation and expense.
752
2136792
3568
35:40
And it just so occurred to us
753
2140384
2150
35:42
that in the previous election, the mayoral one,
754
2142558
3373
35:45
there was a lot of candidates
755
2145955
1397
35:47
that did not include any social media advertisements
756
2147376
2677
35:50
in their expense to the Control Yuan.
757
2150077
2022
35:52
And so essentially, that means that there is a separate amount
758
2152123
4080
35:56
of political donation and expense that evades public scrutiny.
759
2156227
4620
36:00
And our Control Yuan published their numbers
760
2160871
2195
36:03
in raw data form,
761
2163090
1231
36:04
that is to say, they're not statistics,
762
2164345
2008
36:06
but individual records of who donated for what cause,
763
2166367
3215
36:09
when, where,
764
2169606
1151
36:10
and investigative journalists are very happy,
765
2170781
2462
36:13
because they can then make investigative reports
766
2173267
2572
36:15
about the connections between the candidates
767
2175863
2268
36:18
and the people who fund them.
768
2178155
1438
36:19
But they cannot work with the same material
769
2179617
2317
36:21
from the global social media companies.
770
2181958
2001
36:23
So I said, "Look, this is very simple.
771
2183983
2376
36:26
This is the social norm here,
772
2186383
1390
36:27
I don't really care about other jurisdictions.
773
2187797
2181
36:30
You either adhere to the social norm that is set by the Control Yuan
774
2190002
3814
36:33
and the investigative journalists,
775
2193840
1666
36:35
or maybe you will face social sanctions.
776
2195530
2365
36:37
And this is not the government mandate,
777
2197919
2237
36:40
but it's the people fed up with, you know, black box,
778
2200180
3881
36:44
and that's part of the Sunflower Occupy's demands, also.
779
2204085
3825
36:47
And so Facebook actually published in the Ad Library,
780
2207934
3937
36:51
I think at that time, one of the fastest response strategies,
781
2211895
5119
36:57
where everybody who has basically any dark pattern advertisement
782
2217038
6020
37:03
will get revealed very quickly,
783
2223082
1849
37:04
and investigative journalists work with the local civic technologists
784
2224955
3444
37:08
to make sure that if anybody dare to use social media in such a divisive way,
785
2228423
4804
37:13
within an hour, there will be a report out condemning that.
786
2233251
4056
37:17
So nobody tried that during the previous presidential election season.
787
2237331
4143
37:21
DB: So change is possible.
788
2241498
1960
37:24
AT: Mhm.
789
2244196
1150
37:27
WPR: Hey there, we have some more questions from the community.
790
2247942
2969
37:30
There is an anonymous one
791
2250935
2253
37:33
that says, "I believe Taiwan is outside WHO entirely
792
2253212
4492
37:37
and has a 130-part preparation program --
793
2257728
3058
37:40
developed entirely on its own --
794
2260810
1762
37:42
to what extent does it credit its preparation
795
2262596
2409
37:45
to building its own system?"
796
2265029
1867
37:48
AT: Well, a little bit, I guess.
797
2268168
3703
37:51
We tried to warn the WHO,
798
2271895
3010
37:54
but at that point --
799
2274929
1198
37:56
we are not totally outside, we have limited scientific access.
800
2276151
3799
37:59
But we do not have any ministerial access.
801
2279974
2555
38:02
And this is very different, right?
802
2282553
1627
38:04
If you only have limited scientific access,
803
2284204
2564
38:06
unless the other side's top epidemiologist happens to be the vice president,
804
2286792
5888
38:12
like in Taiwan's case,
805
2292704
2016
38:14
they don't always do the storytelling well enough
806
2294744
3770
38:18
to translate that into political action as our vice president did, right?
807
2298538
4032
38:22
So the lack of ministerial access, I think,
808
2302594
2530
38:25
is to the detriment of the global community,
809
2305148
2872
38:28
because otherwise, people could have responded as we did
810
2308044
3287
38:31
in the first day of January,
811
2311355
1436
38:32
instead of having to wait for weeks
812
2312815
3197
38:36
before the WHO declared that this is something,
813
2316036
3666
38:39
that there's definitely human to human transmission,
814
2319726
2430
38:42
that you should inspect people coming in from Wuhan,
815
2322180
2665
38:44
which they eventually did,
816
2324869
1514
38:46
but that's already two weeks or three weeks after what we did.
817
2326407
3217
38:52
WPR: Makes a lot of sense.
818
2332247
1330
38:53
DB: More scientists and technologists in politics.
819
2333601
3413
38:57
That sounds like that's the answer.
820
2337038
1850
38:59
AT: Yeah.
821
2339228
1150
39:02
WPR: And then we have another question here from Kamal Srinivasan
822
2342633
3579
39:06
about your reopening strategy.
823
2346236
1532
39:07
"How are you enabling restaurants and retailers to open safely in Taiwan?"
824
2347792
4576
39:12
AT: Oh, they never closed, so ... (Laughs)
825
2352974
2389
39:15
WPR: Oh!
826
2355387
1475
39:16
AT: Yeah, they never closed,
827
2356886
1350
39:18
there was no lockdown, there was no closure.
828
2358260
3129
39:21
We just said a very simple thing in the CECC press conference,
829
2361413
3476
39:24
that there's going to be physical distancing.
830
2364913
2222
39:27
You maintain one and a half meters indoors
831
2367159
2056
39:29
or wear a mask.
832
2369239
1150
39:30
And that's it.
833
2370413
1181
39:31
And so there are some restaurants that put up, I guess, red curtains,
834
2371618
4657
39:36
some put very cute teddy bears and so on, on the chairs,
835
2376299
4328
39:40
to make sure that people spread evenly,
836
2380651
2331
39:43
some installed see-through glass or plastic walls
837
2383006
6234
39:49
between the seats.
838
2389264
1398
39:50
There's various social innovations happening around.
839
2390686
3213
39:53
And I think the only shops that got closed for a while,
840
2393923
4592
39:58
because they could not innovate quick enough to respond to these rules,
841
2398539
4945
40:03
was the intimate escort bars.
842
2403508
2769
40:06
But eventually, even they invented new ways,
843
2406301
3456
40:09
by handing out these caps that are plastic shielding,
844
2409781
4603
40:14
but still leaves room for drinking behind it.
845
2414408
3341
40:17
And so they opened with that social innovation.
846
2417773
2688
40:22
DB: That's amazing.
847
2422479
1683
40:24
WPR: It is, yeah, it's a lot to learn from your strategies there.
848
2424186
4506
40:28
Thank you, I'll be back towards the end with some final questions.
849
2428716
4075
40:34
DB: I'm very happy to hear that the restaurants were not closed down,
850
2434002
3865
40:37
because I think Taipei has some of the best food in the world
851
2437891
4384
40:42
of any city that I've visited,
852
2442299
3030
40:45
so, you know, kudos to you for that.
853
2445353
3164
40:50
So the big concern when it comes to using digital tools for COVID
854
2450252
6539
40:56
or using digital tools for democracy
855
2456815
2338
40:59
is always privacy.
856
2459177
2474
41:01
You've talked about that a little bit,
857
2461675
3310
41:05
but I'm sure the citizens of Taiwan
858
2465009
3534
41:08
are perhaps equally concerned about their privacy,
859
2468567
2728
41:11
especially given the geopolitical context.
860
2471319
3164
41:14
AT: Definitely.
861
2474507
1156
41:15
DB: So how do you cope with those demands?
862
2475687
2062
41:19
AT: Yeah, we design with not only defensive strategy,
863
2479010
6050
41:25
like minimization of data collection,
864
2485084
2414
41:27
but also proactive measures,
865
2487522
2455
41:30
such as privacy-enhancing technologies.
866
2490001
2521
41:32
One of the top teams that emerged out of our cohack,
867
2492546
3194
41:35
the TW response from the Polis,
868
2495764
3588
41:39
how to make contact tracing easier,
869
2499376
2888
41:42
focused not on the contact tracers,
870
2502288
2040
41:44
not on the medical officers, but on the person.
871
2504352
2861
41:47
So they basically said, "OK, you have a phone,
872
2507237
2293
41:49
you can record your temperatures,
873
2509554
2066
41:51
you can record your whereabouts and things like that,
874
2511644
3203
41:54
but that is strictly in your phone.
875
2514871
2103
41:56
It doesn't even use Bluetooth.
876
2516998
1531
41:58
So there's no transmission.
877
2518553
1334
42:00
Technology uses open-source,
878
2520229
1547
42:01
you can check it, you can use it in airplane mode.
879
2521800
2531
42:04
And when the contact tracer eventually tells you
880
2524355
2548
42:06
that you are part of a high-risk group,
881
2526927
2047
42:08
and they really want your contact history,
882
2528998
2325
42:11
this tool can then generate a single-use URL
883
2531347
3206
42:14
that only contains the precise information,
884
2534577
3781
42:18
anonymized,
885
2538382
1182
42:19
that the contact tracers want.
886
2539588
1640
42:21
But it will not, like in a traditional interview,
887
2541252
3270
42:24
let you ask --
888
2544546
1767
42:26
they ask a question, they only want to know your whereabouts,
889
2546337
3462
42:29
but you answer with such accuracy
890
2549823
1842
42:31
that you end up compromising other people's privacy.
891
2551689
2920
42:34
So basically, this is about designing
892
2554633
2592
42:37
with an aim to enhance other people's privacy,
893
2557249
3351
42:40
because personal data is never truly personal.
894
2560624
2993
42:43
It's always social, it's always intersectional.
895
2563641
2762
42:46
If I take a selfie at a party,
896
2566427
2480
42:48
I inadvertently also take pretty much everybody else's
897
2568931
3685
42:52
who are in the picture, the surroundings, the ambiance, and so on,
898
2572640
3643
42:56
and if I upload it to a cloud service,
899
2576307
3327
42:59
then I actually decimate the bargaining power,
900
2579658
3033
43:02
the negotiation power of everybody around me,
901
2582715
2589
43:05
because then their data is part of the cloud,
902
2585328
2846
43:08
and the cloud doesn't have to compensate them
903
2588198
2117
43:10
or get their agreement for it.
904
2590339
1589
43:11
And so only by designing the tools
905
2591952
2252
43:14
with privacy enhancing as a positive value,
906
2594228
3389
43:17
and not enhancing only the person's own privacy,
907
2597641
2682
43:20
just like a medical mask, it protects you,
908
2600347
2045
43:22
but mostly it also protects others, right?
909
2602416
2082
43:24
So if we design tools using that idea,
910
2604522
3301
43:27
and always open-source and with an open API,
911
2607847
3444
43:31
then we're in a much better shape
912
2611315
1714
43:33
than in centralized or so-called cloud-based services.
913
2613053
4286
43:39
DB: Well, you're clearly living in the future,
914
2619656
2714
43:42
and I guess that's quite literal,
915
2622394
2977
43:45
in the sense of, it's tomorrow morning there.
916
2625395
2126
43:47
AT: Twelve hours.
917
2627545
1159
43:48
DB: Yes.
918
2628728
1150
43:50
Tell me, what do you see in the future?
919
2630657
2928
43:53
What comes next?
920
2633609
1744
43:56
AT: Yes, so I see the coronavirus as a great amplifier.
921
2636926
4075
44:01
If you start with an authoritarian society,
922
2641025
4365
44:05
the coronavirus, with all its lockdowns and so on,
923
2645414
2560
44:07
has the potential of making it even a more totalitarian society.
924
2647998
4809
44:12
If people place their trust, however,
925
2652831
2191
44:15
on the social sector,
926
2655046
1190
44:16
on the ingenuity of social innovators,
927
2656260
2952
44:19
then the pandemic, as in Taiwan,
928
2659236
1928
44:21
actually strengthens our democracy,
929
2661188
2212
44:23
so that people feel, truly, that everybody can think of something
930
2663424
3304
44:26
that improves the welfare of not just Taiwan,
931
2666752
3542
44:30
but pretty much everybody else in the world.
932
2670318
3004
44:33
And so, my point here
933
2673346
1445
44:34
is that the great amplifier comes if no matter you want it or not,
934
2674815
4762
44:39
but the society, what they can do, is do what Taiwan did after SARS.
935
2679601
4609
44:44
In 2003, when SARS came,
936
2684234
2468
44:46
we had to shut down an entire hospital,
937
2686726
2191
44:48
barricading it with no definite termination date.
938
2688941
3904
44:52
It was very traumatic,
939
2692869
1454
44:54
everybody above the age of 30 remembers how traumatic it was.
940
2694347
3532
44:57
The municipalities
941
2697903
1199
44:59
and the central government were saying very different things,
942
2699126
2894
45:02
and that is why after SARS,
943
2702044
1827
45:03
the constitutional courts charged the legislature
944
2703895
3103
45:07
to set up the system as you see today,
945
2707022
2428
45:09
and also that is why,
946
2709474
1357
45:10
when people responding to that crisis back in 2003
947
2710855
3262
45:14
built this very robust response system that there's early drills.
948
2714141
4206
45:18
So just as the Sunflower Occupy,
949
2718371
2198
45:20
because of the crisis in trust let us build new tools
950
2720593
4825
45:25
that put trust first,
951
2725442
1834
45:27
I think the coronavirus is the chance for everybody who have survived
952
2727300
4698
45:32
through the first wave
953
2732022
1161
45:33
to settle on a new set of norms that will reinforce your founding values,
954
2733207
5322
45:38
instead of taking on alien values in the name of survival.
955
2738553
4043
45:44
DB: Yeah, let's hope so,
956
2744704
2108
45:46
and let's hope the rest of the world is as prepared as Taiwan
957
2746836
5512
45:52
the next time around.
958
2752372
2237
45:54
When it comes to digital democracy, though,
959
2754633
3476
45:58
and digital citizenship,
960
2758133
1484
45:59
where do you see that going,
961
2759641
2008
46:01
both in Taiwan and maybe in the rest of the world?
962
2761673
2616
46:05
AT: Well, I have my job description here,
963
2765108
3031
46:08
which I will read to you.
964
2768163
1311
46:09
It's literally my job description and the answer to that question.
965
2769498
3377
46:12
And so, here goes.
966
2772899
1150
46:14
When we see the internet of things,
967
2774474
2508
46:17
let's make it the internet of beings.
968
2777006
2200
46:19
When we see virtual reality,
969
2779657
2190
46:21
let's make it a shared reality.
970
2781871
2222
46:24
When we see machine learning,
971
2784728
2103
46:26
let's make it collaborative learning.
972
2786855
2467
46:29
When we see user experience,
973
2789758
2674
46:32
let's make it about human experience.
974
2792456
2563
46:35
And whenever we hear the singularity is near,
975
2795361
3008
46:38
let us always remember
976
2798393
1740
46:40
the plurality is here.
977
2800157
2071
46:42
Thank you for listening.
978
2802942
1600
46:45
DB: Wow.
979
2805379
1301
46:46
I have to give that a little clap,
980
2806704
2025
46:48
that was beautiful.
981
2808753
1267
46:50
(Laughs)
982
2810625
1150
46:52
Quite a job description too.
983
2812243
1382
46:53
So, conservative anarchist,
984
2813649
2043
46:55
digital minister, and with that job description --
985
2815716
3316
46:59
that's pretty impressive.
986
2819056
1233
47:00
AT: A poetician, yes.
987
2820313
1600
47:02
DB: (Laughs)
988
2822279
1944
47:04
So I struggle to imagine
989
2824858
4669
47:09
an adoption of these techniques in the US,
990
2829551
3460
47:13
and that may be my pessimism weighing in.
991
2833035
3839
47:16
But what words of hope do you have for the US, as we cope with COVID?
992
2836898
4917
47:23
AT: Well, as I mentioned, during SARS in Taiwan,
993
2843701
3761
47:27
nobody imagined we could have CECC and a cute spokesdog.
994
2847486
4613
47:32
Before the Sunflower movement, during a large protest,
995
2852123
2773
47:34
there was, I think, half a million people on the street, and many more.
996
2854920
4340
47:39
Nobody thought that we could have a collective intelligence system
997
2859284
4122
47:43
that puts open government data
998
2863430
2770
47:46
as a way to rebuild citizen participation.
999
2866224
2770
47:49
And so, never lose hope.
1000
2869018
1975
47:51
As my favorite singer, Leonard Cohen -- a poet, also -- is fond of saying,
1001
2871017
5614
47:56
"Ring the bells that still can ring
1002
2876655
1690
47:58
and forget any perfect offering.
1003
2878369
2635
48:01
There is a crack in everything and that is how the light gets in."
1004
2881028
4325
48:07
WPR: Wow.
1005
2887149
1150
48:09
That's so beautiful,
1006
2889320
1207
48:10
and it feels like such a great message to, sort of, leave the audience with,
1007
2890551
3896
48:14
and sharing the sentiment
1008
2894471
1296
48:15
that everyone seems to be so grateful for what you've shared, Audrey,
1009
2895791
3684
48:19
and all the great information and insight into Taiwan's strategies.
1010
2899499
5856
48:26
AT: Thank you.
1011
2906502
1151
48:27
WPR: And David --
1012
2907677
1150
48:29
DB: I was just going to say, thank you so much for that,
1013
2909661
2651
48:32
thank you for that beautiful job description,
1014
2912336
2126
48:34
and for all the wisdom you shared in rapid-fire fashion.
1015
2914486
4260
48:38
I think it wasn't just one idea that you shared,
1016
2918770
3152
48:41
but maybe, I don't know, 20, 30, 40?
1017
2921946
2980
48:44
I lost count at some point.
1018
2924950
1800
48:47
AT: Well, it's called Ideas Worth Spreading,
1019
2927855
2103
48:49
it's a plural form.
1020
2929982
1277
48:51
(Laughter)
1021
2931283
1717
48:53
DB: Very true.
1022
2933363
1151
48:54
Well, thank you so much for joining us.
1023
2934538
2692
48:57
WPR: Thank you, Audrey.
1024
2937254
1151
48:58
DB: And I wish you luck with everything.
1025
2938429
1926
49:00
AT: Thank you, and have a good local time.
1026
2940857
2368
49:03
Stay safe.
1027
2943249
1150
About this website

This site will introduce you to YouTube videos that are useful for learning English. You will see English lessons taught by top-notch teachers from around the world. Double-click on the English subtitles displayed on each video page to play the video from there. The subtitles scroll in sync with the video playback. If you have any comments or requests, please contact us using this contact form.

https://forms.gle/WvT1wiN1qDtmnspy7