Investigating Yang's Cyber Warriors Case Half Way, Is the Green Camp Diffident?

 Investigating Yang's Cyber Warriors Case Half Way, Is the Green Camp Diffident?

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

December 4, 2019

 Translation of an Excerpt

The general public has for long heard about Green camp cyber warriors, whose roars and rampages on the Internet are exactly in direct proportion to their crude and brusque rhetoric. Through the suicide case of diplomat Su Chii-cherng, director of the Taipei Economic and Culture Office in Osaka, the Taipei District Prosecutor's Office has recently indicted Slow Yang, dubbed “credit card prodigy” by the media, who directed the cyber warriors in guiding public opinion, and her downstream subordinate Tsai Fu-ming. This not only directly revealed the loci of the Green camp cyber warriors, but also confirmed that they were “snipers” on the pay. To this, the DPP only responded in a low-key, saying "we must remember this mistake and lesson"; however, what then? Continue to unleash cyber warriors to engage in smearing at will?

This time, the Taipei District Prosecutor's Office indicted Slow Yang on charges of "insulting a government agency and public functionaries"; this is indeed courageous and commendable. Opening up the inside information about the Green cyber warriors has an alarming effect about the perdition of Taiwan's political establishment. The onslaught of cyber warriors in recent years has veritably created several extremely negative impacts on Taiwan’s society and democratic politics: First, fictitious public opinion surveys misdirect public opinions, seriously messing up right and wrong, black and white. Second, engaging in vicious personal attacks has led to the inability of rational dialogue in public forums. Third, through exploiting young netizens at a low cost, they have filled their lives with negative and twisted emotions. Fourth, operations guiding the direction of public opinions filled with malice, besides bullying government officials to commit suicide, often impacts the political situations, stealing the fruits of democracy.

Nevertheless, this indictment by the Taipei District Prosecutor's Office has left behind unfinished business. The reason is, the prosecutors only indicted Slow Yang, yet avoided the pursuit of the source of funds for hiring the cyber warriors and the higher-level masterminds behind the scenes, leaving the impression that "it stopped half way", giving the society deeper doubts and suspicions.

Slow Yang has been indicted for her cyber warfare, and the Green camp has said publicly that "we must remember the lesson." However, would the actual actions truly fade away? About this point, subsequent observations are still needed. Utilizing cyber warriors may, in a twisted way, enhance a lot of combativeness; once being addicted, it will not be easy to quit. Just like the “fake Communist spy case” of Wang Liqiang, the DPP at the onset thought that it had again picked up a gun, but with the truth gradually being revealed, it found that the gun they picked up was too hot to handle. Just imagine, if young people find that the sacred teachings of "anti-China to defend Taiwan", which they truly believed in, without any question, turned out to be just Tsai Ing-wen's personal power game, how does she go on deceiving?

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