News of Taiwanese villagers protesting against S'pore is 6 months old, not new

There is fake news. And then there is old news.

Belmont Lay | October 10, 2017, 08:34 PM

As a result of not providing much context or substantiation, an old piece of news about Taiwanese villagers protesting against Singapore has taken a life of its own -- six months after it first appeared.

6-month-old video

A video from a Taiwanese news channel that came out half a year ago has been ripped and reproduced on Facebook -- again.

And as a result, it has been widely shared among Singaporeans since it was republished on Oct. 6, 2017 by a person named Chrisline Christabella Quah:

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In four days, the video was shared 8,500 times and had 336,000 views.

However, the post sharing the video was not accompanied by any context and the comments section has been shut off to the wider public.

Old news

A search online reveals this news item first appeared on March 27, 2017 written in Chinese on a Taiwanese website.

It is about a group of Taiwanese villagers supposedly holding a protest in Hsinchu County against Singapore. The protest, an obscure and localised issue, was held outside the army base Hukou Camp that houses the Republic of China Army 6th Army Corps.

The villagers were reportedly angry their land is being used by the Singapore Armed Forces as an artillery range. They also complained about the disruptions that training exercises have had on their lives and has caused land prices to decline.

Why Singaporeans are concerned?

One reason the news has received a lot of attention is because Singaporeans were clearly unaware that this incident happened in the first place.

At that time it occurred in March 2017, no significant news sites in Singapore picked up on it.

Only on April 14, more than two weeks later, did some alternative online news sites and fringe Facebook pages write about what the video reported on.

And when they did, the main gripe was that this news was not reported in Singapore's mainstream media.

It appears that six months since it was first published, Singaporeans are still none the wiser about the circumstances of the event -- an indication the issue has never gained traction.

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A disinformation campaign

In the most benign form, this can be seen as an attempt at mischief.

Seen more critically, it can be interpreted as a disinformation campaign to confuse the public, as Singaporeans are questioning the validity of the report and severity of the issue without knowing the context or when it occurred:

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