Taipei City fan page "I am from Taipei" was exposed for buying fake traffic, the budget was expanded to 9 million, and 95% of the likes came from Indonesian fake accounts

◎ Yang Zhiqiang

Recently, the Taipei City Government's official Facebook fan page "I am from Taipei" has seen strange scenes. Under the post promoting Dadaocheng fireworks, eating ice cream and other local government posts, a large number of Indonesian and Middle Eastern accounts flooded the post with comments, likes and comments. If it weren't for seeing it, people might mistakenly think that Taipei Municipal Government has successfully "marketed internationally." However, this turned out to be a digital scandal in which public funds were used to buy fake traffic and then blatantly lied to the parliament after the incident.

Faced with doubts from the outside world, the Beijing Municipal Publicity and Communication Bureau immediately shifted the responsibility to the outsourcing manufacturer, arguing that "the advertising audience was set incorrectly and was mistakenly sent to Southeast Asia." This excuse, full of technical rhetoric, was immediately slapped in the face by public data. In order to prevent political and advertising black boxes, Facebook has established an "advertising archive" that is accessible to everyone. Public records clearly show that the fans’ advertising areas over the years have never included Indonesia.

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A large number of Indonesian accounts flooded into the Taipei City fan page "Humans of Taipei, I am from Taipei." The Taipei City Publicity Bureau argued that "the advertising audience was set incorrectly and was mistakenly sent to Southeast Asia." The picture shows "Humans of Taipei I am from Taipei" Facebook. (Picture taken from Sijimao Facebook)

Since it has never been advertised in Indonesia, where do these zombie-like canned messages across oceans come from? The most likely truth is that in order to beautify the performance reports, the contractor secretly purchased cheap overseas fake accounts from overseas "Click Farm" to increase the number of likes and comments.

Shockingly, this is not just a pure public relations disaster, but a ridiculous misuse of public funds. According to city councilor Yan Ruofang, the budget for the community maintenance bid has been expanded from 3 million to nearly 9 million. Taxpayers spent nearly tens of millions of hard-earned money, but failed to exchange for effective communication with the public. Instead, they bought a "vanity indicator" that up to 95% of a single post was made up of fake overseas accounts. The "total annual reach of more than 9.19 million people" proudly advertised in the budget book now seems to be nothing more than a digital mirage stacked with New Taiwan dollars.

What is even more disgraceful is the arrogance of Chiang Kai-shek's bureaucrats. When the lie was exposed in the parliament, Director Wang Qiudong tried to get away with a defense that lacked basic digital common sense, such as "the advertisement is still being published and can only be seen behind the scenes." In order to cover up defects in procurement and acceptance, the sophistry and corruption mentality of making the same mistake over and over has been confirmed.

The outrageous and outlandish "Indonesian Navy Case" further proves that Chiang Wanan's governance was both good on the outside and full of failures! When municipal publicity is reduced to vanity figures that deceive the world and steal reputation, when public budgets become cash machines for feeding black-hearted public relations, the Chiang City government not only insults the wisdom of all Taipei citizens, but also exceeds the bottom line of democratic supervision. If even the official fans of the Taipei City Government team can blatantly falsify and make strong claims, how dare Taipei people hand over hundreds of billions of dollars worth of municipal construction and the future of the city to the rulers who have no integrity?

The outrageous and outlandish "Indonesian Navy Case" further proves that Chiang Wanan's governance was both good on the outside and full of failures. The picture shows Jiang Wanan. (File photo)

(The author is a social studies teacher)