On Saturday, October 3rd, a Facebook post by Taipei Mayor Jiang Wan’an on the topic of drug decriminalization sparked a large number of comments due to its association with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) opponent, Shen Boyang.
The number of comments quickly surpassed 400,000 within 15 hours. By 3:00 PM on Sunday, October 4th Eastern time, the total reached 555,000.
When asked by the media about the high volume of comments, Jiang Wan’an responded by saying, “Maybe we can really apply for a Guinness World Record for this, let the world see Taiwan’s election culture.”
Regarding whether his team had deleted comments, Jiang Wan’an stated that it’s impossible to delete tens of thousands of comments one by one and that he always welcomes exchanges of different opinions.
The inundation of comments on this Facebook post stems from the Taipei mayoral election. The Kuomintang recently criticized the DPP Taipei mayoral candidate, Shen Boyang, for advocating drug decriminalization in an article published in 2014.
On Saturday evening, Jiang Wan’an also posted on Facebook, accusing Shen Boyang of blurring the line between drugs and medication. In the post, Jiang wrote, “There is no room for ambiguity in anti-drug efforts, and prohibiting drugs from entering schools and communities is a red line that must be upheld. Shen Boyang advocates, ‘Taiwan can at least emulate some countries by establishing community centers that provide drug users with drugs and clean needles.'”
Shen Boyang clarified that the previous article aimed to introduce international harm reduction and prevention policies, not to encourage drug use.
Subsequently, a large number of critical comments flooded the comment section. Some comments pointed out that Jiang Wan’an’s reference to the content was taken out of context. Reports also surfaced about Jiang Wan’an’s editor deleting comments, fueling more discontent among netizens.
The conflict continued on Sunday, with Shen Boyang lamenting being smeared and Jiang Wan’an urging against spreading the misleading message that “drugs are just medicine.”
Jiang Wan’an, attending the establishment event of an education support group on Sunday afternoon, stated that any rational discussion is welcomed and reiterated his firm stance against drug decriminalization.
The source of the massive comments remains disputed between the two conflicting parties. Some supporters believe it’s the work of the DPP’s online army.
However, according to Taiwan media reports, when some netizens inquired with Meta’s artificial intelligence assistant (Meta AI), they were informed that achieving such levels of comments through purchased means is unlikely. Calculating at a rate of 5 to 10 New Taiwan dollars per comment, the cost for such online manipulation would amount to at least 1.4 to 2.8 million dollars, and social media platforms have strict measures against fake comments.
The AI assistant also pointed out that the comment count far exceeds the number of likes, with a higher number of angry reactions than likes, indicating characteristics of genuine discontent expressed through flooding comments.
Nevertheless, this is a speculative response from an AI and not an official verification result. As of now, there is no authoritative conclusion on whether the comments were part of an organized operation.