Scholars question editor Jiang Wanan’s deletion of comments as a violation of freedom of speech, saying public accounts should be subject to public management

Taipei Mayor Chiang Wanan posted a post on Facebook at 9 pm yesterday (3rd) criticizing Democratic Progressive Party Taipei mayoral candidate Shen Boyang's article about drugs in 2014, emphasizing that "there is no room for ambiguity in anti-drugs." However, some netizens questioned Chiang's mention of " Jiang's Facebook page was flooded with comments from netizens regarding the proposals and double standards related to "Mesadon for Detoxing Addiction", and some netizens discovered that editor Jiang Wanan had deleted unfavorable comments, which inspired netizens to double their comments. As of 10 o'clock this morning, there had been 354,000 comments. In this regard, scholar Shen Rongqin mentioned the principles for handling accounts of foreign politicians and questioned the legitimacy of editor Jiang Wanan’s deletion of articles.

Shen Rongqin said that the two messages that editor Chiang Wanan is now deleting are not lies and are related to the purpose of Chiang's posts. One is about Chiang Wanan's budget freeze on "methadon replacement therapy" when he was a legislator, and the other is that Chiang Wanan himself serves as the director of the Taipei City Drug Hazard Prevention Center. The first point highlights that when Chiang Wanan was the mayor of Taipei, his concept of drug prevention and control was even more backward than when he was a legislator, and he had the nerve to attack his opponents. The second point is that Chiang Wanan didn't even know that he was also the director of the Taipei Drug Harm Prevention Center. "The forgetfulness reflects his unfamiliarity with municipal administration, mainly due to his lack of attentiveness."

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Shen Rongqin mentioned that in this "historic battle", one question has not been raised, and that is "Where does editor Jiang Wanan have the power to delete articles?" Shen gave an example. Some countries require social media to use public accounts after politicians are elected to public office. The cost of managing public accounts is paid from the government budget. Once politicians leave office, the public accounts must be returned.

Shen Rongqin pointed out that this is not the case in Taiwan. After politicians are elected to public office, they can treat their private accounts as public accounts and manage them through the government budget. However, accounts are still regarded as private property by politicians and can be "taken away" and continued to be used after leaving office.

Shen Rongqin believes that this creates a problem. Since it is the public account of a politician and is supported by the national budget, the editor who manages it cannot delete the comments he does not like at will, otherwise it will be suspected of violating freedom of speech. However, most politicians in Taiwan still regard their accounts as the private property of politicians even if they use government budgets. They can delete messages at will without worrying about possible infringement of freedom of speech.

Shen Rongqin pointed out that "blocking people" is more controversial. It may hinder people's access to government information. Especially during emergencies such as natural disasters, public accounts on social media are often an important source of real-time information. Taiwan's system, which is completely biased in favor of politicians and does not distinguish between public and private, is the main reason for today's doubts.