We are now more than a year since the start of the pandemic. As we know, many countries remain or have recently gone back into lock down and while transmission rates may be on a downward trend, the picture still looks bleak... except in Taiwan. Can you tell me, as you look back over the year, what were the key factors that enabled Taiwan to manage the spread of the virus so well? I’m curious to know, too, how you’ve maintained the public’s buy-in over the course of the year.

It feels like trust in government plays a huge roll in a population’s receptivity to COVID containment measures. Last summer, a number of civil servants from around the world working on COVID 19 misinformation found (unsurprisingly) that in those countries that had invested in digital media literacy and where people trusted the government (Latvia and Estonia were both examples), COVID misinformation didn’t really take hold, while in those with little trust in government (Brazil, for example), misinformation was rampant. Over the past few years, Taiwan has really turned around its trust in government. For those countries that have lost the trust of their people, what would you say is the key to rebuilding it?



A lot of the time when governments and civil society get together to talk about the role of big tech in society, there is a tendency for the conversation to be negative and to focus primarily on the challenges brought about by the digital platforms. Something that really strikes me about your, and Taiwan’s, approach to these issues is how positive you are about the role that tech can play in addressing society’s challenges. How can other governments “recapture” that spirit of tech optimism that we seem to have lost? What’s the key from your point of view? Is every solution to society’s problems going to be a tech solution?

(I expect a follow up question) I’m interested to hear more about your ongoing partnerships with the civic tech community. For those who aren’t aware, can you tell us more about the inspiration behind vTaiwan and how it works to solve Taiwan’s pressing issues?

In your view, is the antidote to disinformation more accurate information or is there more to it? What are the key building blocks governments need to put in place to help build societal resilience against fake, manipulated or misleading information? One thing that really jumped out at me from your approach is the role that humour can play. Can you tell us more about that?

One of the things we’ve talked about in our Network is the need for more data scientists in government to help policy makers understand digital platforms and the online world. I wonder what you think of that concept – is this the case or do you think it’s the reverse: rather than bring data scientists into government, do we need to open up more of government to the data scientists and hackers?


Governments tend to avoid failure and so can be afraid to take risks. The challenge is that we learn most from our mistakes. Justifiably, there has been a lot of talk about Taiwan’s success in managing the public’s response to the pandemic. I wonder, though, as you look over the past year, are there any experiments that didn’t work? What can we learn from them that we can apply more broadly?

Finally, you’ve spoken about how the same kind of approaches have and can be used to combat other types of mis- and disinformation. What would you say are the lessons that can be most easily repurposed to address other forms of online disinformation?