Ep 49 | Sophie Ping-Ya Hsu on Taiwan Voice

Sep 1, 2014

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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