Telling Taiwan from New Zealand: Anatomy of a thoughtless tweet

This is a cautionary tale based on the biggest ever blunder I’ve made in cyberspace.

My mistake happened yesterday because of the photo shown above. The photo is from a landslide which fell on a Taiwanese motorway in 2010. Unbeknown to me until yesterday, a 6.5 magnitude earthquake in the ocean north of the Philippines struck the port city of Keelung in north-east Taiwan on 26 April 2010. My ignorance of this event and photograph of the motorway landslide there would get me in trouble.

Yesterday morning, I was taking a break at work and looking for online images of the deadly Christchurch earthquake which struck a day earlier. I was feeling relieved at the time as a mate of mine from Christchurch had just gotten online to say he and his family were safe. I was now searching the #eqnz hashtag on Twitter for interesting Twitpics of the earthquake. I found some amazing images but one really stood out. It was the picture of the Taiwanese landslide above, but purporting to be from New Zealand.

I found it from a tweet by Frangii, one David Frangiosa from Brisbane which was then retweeted by Shotz Digital Prints also of Brisbane.
It read “Tragey in #EQNZ but this looks like it could be an add for a 4WD http://twitpic.com/42qv28” You can't find that twitpic now, it no longer exists. Te spelling alone should have alerted me to a problem. The bit about “an add” also suggested it might have been photoshopped. Yet I was simply gobsmacked by what I saw. The scale of the landslide was massive and it was all too easy to imagine there might be dead people buried under the immense pile of rubble. For reasons I can barely fathom, I simply wanted this to be true.

I didn’t take a screen grab at the time so I can’t remember what the exact text of the caption was in the twitpic. I do remember it had #eqnz tagged against it but that was too small a token of authenticity and no excuse for what I did next. Without further research and still mesmerised by the photo, I went to twitter and forwarded the twitpic on with this tweet: “this #eqnz motorway damage photo is almost surreal http://twitpic.com/42qv28”.

I then went back to my work and thought nothing more about Twitter for another hour or so, though I couldn’t get the image out of my head. While I was gone, I was unaware many others would see my tweet. I had committed two classic mistakes. Firstly I hadn’t taken the time to authenticate the photo and secondly I did take the time to remove the attribution.

The photo was more surreal than I gave it credit for. It took off and would be retweeted a further 90 times with the vast majority quoting me as the source. I would be later notified in a tweet from Trends NZ that my twitter handle was trending in New Zealand. By then I knew I was in trouble.

A quick look at the retweets showed me what had happened. Initially I was followed by six retweets with no comments. Then people started adding “holy hell”, “oh hell”, “WOW" and “Theres a mountain in my hwy”. In turn these people’s tweets were retweeted by their followers. A classic network pattern was emerging where I was the hub of the information. My "almost surreal" tweet was attracting a lot more attention than Frangii's original "add for a 4WD".

Finally some of the re-tweeters started to question its veracity. 18 tweets after mine, came the first question from @CNell_NZ in Wellington saying “You are kidding me”. One tweet later @flukazoid added “o hai photoshop”. But the next 16 settled back into admiration until @jesidres put the record straight with this tweet: “http://twitpic.com/42qv28 - It's not actually from #EQNZ- the image is at least 6 months old.”

@Jesidres didn’t mention my name but the next seven did, all retweeting my comments or the additions to them without question. @lukechristensen also knew it was fake and admonished @nzben for retweeting it but not me. @BabetteNOS took the conversation into Dutch while still saying these were images of New Zealand: “Heftige beelden uit NZ http://twitpic.com/42qv28, Correspondent @RobertPortier is onderweg, maar twittert even niet omdat hij rijdt. #EQNZ."
There were three more “wow” retweets of my mine when I got the first direct response saying there was a problem. @LMRIQ wrote “This is actually a really old photo pre-2011 RT @derekbarry: this #eqnz motorway damage photo is almost surreal http://twitpic.com/42qv28”.

Still the reinforcing retweets came with another seven variants on the “Wow” theme.
Finally Elpie put Frangii straight about where the photo came from. “@Frangii http://twitpic.com/42qv28 - This image has nothing to do with the #Christchurch #eqnz. Its Taiwan, April 2010: http://bit.ly/gSnaRb”. Elpie didn't send it to me so I remained in the dark about its provenance. All I kept getting were nine more retweets which maintained the “holy hell” line. A questioning few were changing in tone. @carorolyn asked “only almost?”. A full 28 more tweets maintained the wow factor before @merrolee begged to differ. “I don't think so - this is not Chch..The ChristChurch earthquake buried this highway. Amazing image - http://alic.am/dKKoR3 #eqnz”. Yet right to the end, people swallowed the NZ line until Franjii deleted the photo.

The level of scepticism was higher among those who responded to me without retweeting the photo. This from @blisterguy: “@vavroom @derekbarry @cjlambert that's not actually anywhere near Christchurch, or New Zealand, for that matter #eqnz”
This from @simongrigor - “@derekbarry is that photo even NZ? Doesn't look familiar??”
And @Nathanealb - “@Sephyre @derekbarry @DDsD That photo is not #eqnz ...”
And @vebbed - “@ViewNewZealand @vavroom @derekbarry @cjlambert that aint NZ”
And @surgeInwelly “@sarahlalor @phoeberuby @derekbarry where is it exactly?... are you sure it's genuine?”
lmsmith - “@derekbarry @cadetdory STOP RTing that, it's not in CHch.”
altwohill - “@derekbarry except it's not exactly #nz, is it?
@mellopuffy - “@derekbarry @nzben that looks like a fake pls check before retweeting #eqnz”
And on it went. Some pointed out the cars were going the wrong way, Others that Canterbury was flat and had few six-lane highways. It was possibly Europe said one, possibly America said another until someone finally gave me the Taiwan link.

Some were angry I had posted it with a #eqnz tag conferring legitimacy (as the vast majority of the retweets seemed to swallow). “Don't know who started it, but it was fear mongering and stupid. Makes me sad,” said one.
I knew then it was time for a retraction. I went back online to post this: “apologies all about the motorway pic. Its a fake. A nano-second of research before sending it would have helped.”

The retraction was wrong too; it wasn't a fake. The photo was real but wasn’t New Zealand. I was right about the research though. Particularly as a journalist I should have known better. Too often I’ve laughed at the Richard Wilkins and Kochies of this world whose tweets get them into trouble and now here I was making an ass of myself the same way.

I showed naivety, lack of thoroughness and no care or attention to the consequences of my actions. In one sense it was a minor error, but it may also have helped to spread misinformation about a major tragedy. The death toll is approaching 100 and likely to far exceed that. I apologise to anyone I might have offended with my tweet. The power of Twitter deserves much better.

Taiwan in dangerous straits

China has confirmed it arrested two Taiwanese citizens last week on charges of espionage. China's Taiwan Affairs Office confirmed a Taiwan media report that two Taipei businessmen have been arrested for spying. The Office deals with Taiwanese affairs in the absence of official ties between the countries. Last week Taiwan's United Daily News said the two had been arrested in southern China for providing military secrets to Taiwan. It is the latest in a long round of tit-for-tat spying allegations in both countries.

In April China executed Tong Daning, a director of the National Social Security Fund, on charges of spying for Taiwan. Employees of Chinese universities, radio and television stations have been forced to watch a video titled "Tong Daning's Spying Case" in the weeks following the execution. The video was meant to "strengthen employees' concept of protecting secrets," according to a Chinese web site.

In 2004 Chinese news agency Xinhua reported that the State Security Department had smashed a Taiwanese spy ring arresting 24 Taiwanese and 19 mainlanders. The report did not identify those detained or say what sort of spying they conducted except to say the group had "conducted activities in violation of the law” and had confessed. According to the HK newspaper, Taiwan’s President Chen Shui-bian blew their cover when he listed the locations of almost 500 missiles he said the mainland had pointed at Taiwan.

The welfare of Taiwanese spies in China was also seriously compromised by the 2002 revelations of a secret US$100m slush fund to pay for covert diplomatic operations. The story was leaked by Colonel Liu Kuan-chun, a former chief cashier at Taiwan's National Security Bureau who fled Taiwan in September 2000 amid allegations he embezzled US$5.5m from the fund. It is a major issue for the island because Taiwan has so few official diplomatic ties with other countries and it relies on personal contacts with its allies to conduct foreign relations.

Currently only 24 nations of the world recognise Taiwan as the sole Republic of China. These are mostly poor nations in Africa, Central America and some Pacific islands whose support has been bought through generous loans and grants. China continues to launch a diplomatic offensive to isolate the island nation. Taiwan is a relic of the Chinese civil war. After the mainland fell to the Communists in 1949, Chiang Kai-Shek’s Kuomintang government fled to Taiwan where it was still universally recognised as the official Chinese government.

The Republic of China was a founder member of the UN and held China’s seat at the UN and the security council until 1971. In that year the UN conceded that the Kuomintang's claim to all of China was unrealistic and they adopted General Assembly Resolution 2758 which replaced the Republic of China with the mainland People’s Republic of China as the country’s sole representative. Taiwan has called for an amendment of this resolution to allow it be represented as a state in the UN. However China has blocked all attempts to change its status. It also refuses to have diplomatic relations with any nation that recognises the Republic of China, and requires all nations that it has diplomatic relations with to recognise its claims to Taiwan.

The US officially switched allegiances under the Carter administration in 1979. But the seeds for the switch were sown by Henry Kissinger seven years earlier when he issued the Shanghai Communique. This stated that all Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait agreed there was only one China and that the United States recognised this position. It deliberately avoided stating which China was the one China. When Carter normalised the Chinese relationship, he did so without consulting Congress who had just voted that no relations were to be established with China at the expense of Taiwan. Congress retaliated by passing the Taiwan Relations Act which obliges the US to supply Taiwan with defensive weapons to maintain a balance of power with China.

The Act also authorised the created the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). The AIT is officially the vehicle of “commercial, cultural and other relations between the people of the United States and the people on Taiwan”. But in reality it is the de facto US embassy in Taipei. Taiwan set up a counterpart called the Taipei Economic & Cultural Representative Office in the US (TECRO) which is its Washington embassy. The US official position remains the support of a peaceful transition to a One China.

America is not alone in having a policy of deliberate ambiguity towards Taiwan. The country competes in the Olympics and FIFA World cup events under the name of Chinese Taipei. The UN refers to the island as “Taiwan, Province of China”. But for the World Trade Organisation it goes under the unwieldy moniker of the “Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu”. The status quo is accepted because it does not define the legal status or future status of Taiwan, leaving each vested interest to interpret the situation in whatever way it prefers.

But there is now growing support in Taiwan change the status quo. Many centrist and left wing parties such as the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) now favour complete independence while the old guard dominated by the Kuomintang remain pro-unification. The irony is that although Beijing sees the republic of China as an illegitimate entity, it has stated that any effort by Taiwan to formally abolish the republic or renounce its claim over the China would be viewed unfavourably as an act of independence. The continual arresting of “spies” may just be China’s way of showing its displeasure.