Messaging app LINE is a haven for health scams, misleading headlines and Chinese government propaganda. In this four part series, The Reporter reveals a trans-national group of schemers behind the all out assault.

By Jason Liu (劉致昕), Ko Hao-hsiang (柯皓翔) and Hsu Chia-yu (許家瑜)

Photography by Su Wei-ming (蘇威銘)

Design by Brittany Myburgh

Translation by Harrison Chen

This piece first appeared in The Reporter (報導者) and is published under a creative commons license.

On one end of the line, Taiwanese uncles and aunties read about the newfound healing powers of “yam leaf milk,” an elixir that purportedly prevents high blood pressure, high blood sugar and cholesterol. On the other end are the “merchants” fabricating such stories, who use the resulting income to buy cars and mansions.

Attracted by provocative and controversial headlines they see on platforms such as Google, Facebook and LINE, these unsuspecting uncles and aunties are contributing clicks to “content farms” — companies that produce massive amounts of low-quality news articles in order to collect money from page clicks.

A team at The Reporter spent two months investigating this phenomenon, following a trail which began in public LINE groups and ultimately revealed a transnational money-making machine which has operated for at least four years between Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and China.

After gaining membership to their Telegram, WhatsApp and Facebook groups, we checked the list of members and discovered a motley crew of Taiwanese and overseas Chinese individuals, from a member of a Taiwanese pro-unification political party, to a businessman living in Kaohsiung who founded the well-known Taiwanese websites Ghost Island News (鬼島狂新聞) and Blue-White Sandals Counterattack (藍白拖的逆襲).

DISINFORMATION IN LINE GROUPS

At the end of November, next to the Wanhua Railway Station in Taipei, about forty to fifty elderly people sat in a community activity center. But they weren’t playing cards or singing songs that day. On each table was a pamphlet reading “A Guide to Checking Fake News” and the audience listened attentively to the presenter.

“Okay everyone, when you wake up, the first thing you do is check LINE, right?” the 31 year old Ivy asks. The elderly respond in unison like schoolchildren: “right!”

“If you’ve been scammed before, can you raise your hand?” Ivy asked. The atmosphere suddenly chills. After a second someone laughs, and the words “fake news” undulate in the crowd as a few hands are slowly raised into the air. “Let’s give them a round of applause!” Ivy said, encouraging them to find the courage to admit past mistakes.

A DISASTER BREWING IN THE PHONES OF THE ELDERLY

Since the end of 2018, Ivy and three other partners founded the Fakenews Cleaner (假新聞清潔劑). Since then, with the help of over seven hundred multi-generational volunteers from towns and cities of all sizes, Ivy and her team have travelled around Taiwan giving over a hundred public presentations in community spaces, temples, and traditional markets. These volunteers form local fake news self-help groups, and report suspicious messages that appear daily on messaging app LINE.

It’s the Fakenews Cleaner team that tells us about the cure-all elixirs circulating on LINE that most Taiwanese have never heard of: