Ep 49 | Sophie Ping-Ya Hsu on Taiwan Voice

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:

Around the time of the Sunflower Movement in 2014, which was a protest in response to Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou attempting to force passage of the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement (a trade pact between Taiwan and China), the Taiwan Voice Facebook page quickly became a major source of news about the movement. Students and activists occupied Taiwan's Legislative Yuan (Taiwan's parliament) from March 18-April 10, 2014. Sophie Ping-Ya Hsu spoke about how the Taiwan Voice Facebook page got started, her involvement in it and its impact.  

 

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

·       How the Taiwan Voice Facebook page got started

·       How Taiwan Voice started in part to support the students who occupied the Legislative Yuan on March 18, 2014

·       Sophie's background and connection to Taiwan

·       How Sophie got involved in the Taiwan Voice and met the others in the group

·       How the Taiwan Voice Facebook page was getting a thousand likes per day

·       Sophie's contribution to running the Taiwan Voice Facebook page was as an editor, she scanned through Chinese-language social media posts for information and news ideas, to coordinate with English translators and to post to the Taiwan Voice Facebook page

·       Sophie recruited people to help run the Taiwan Voice Facebook page

·       The core group that started Taiwan Voice Facebook were 10-15 individuals

·       Initially news and information related to social justice issues were posted to the Facebook page without any filtering

·       How Taiwan Voice made an impact in creating awareness about Taiwan over social media

·       How Taiwan Voice helped to gather momentum from abroad for the Sunflower Movement

·       How Taiwan Voice was a quick source of news about Taiwan

 

Related Links:

 

Taiwan Voice Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/TaiwanVoice

 

Sunflower Movement: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunflower_Student_Movement

 

Legislative Yuan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislative_Yuan

 

Ma Ying-jeou: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma_Ying-jeou