Audrey Tang: Feel free to ask anything.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Good. Let’s first get the recording stuff set up.

Audrey Tang: Are you planning to publish soon or not?

Klaus Bardenhagen: It may be that the editor says, “Let’s do this for next week’s issue.” This is for “Focus,” which is a weekly news magazine. It may be that they say, “We have a little more time, so you don’t need to.”

Audrey Tang: It’s weekly, which means that the embargo will probably be just two weeks or three at most. We embargo the publish of transcript until you do.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Great. Thank you. If I may, I will use two recording devices to make sure.

Audrey Tang: Of course. This place is in abundance of recording devices. [laughs]

Klaus Bardenhagen: Very good. In preparation, I did read up on a few of your speeches and previous interviews done with you. Maybe we don’t need to talk about all the basic concepts again.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Maybe it can be a little bit more about filling the gaps where I’m…

Audrey Tang: Go straight to the fact-checking part. [laughs]

Klaus Bardenhagen: One thing is we do need for this reporting, because it’s general interest, we also need to talk about the general situation Taiwan is in, facing China, Hong Kong, everything that’s happening there. I don’t want you to answer like the foreign minister. You are not the foreign minister.

Audrey Tang: I can quote the foreign minister.

Klaus Bardenhagen: No!

Klaus Bardenhagen: Just from your personal point of view is much more interesting.

Audrey Tang: [laughs] OK.

Klaus Bardenhagen: How would you describe to someone who doesn’t know Taiwan’s society? How are the Taiwanese people dealing with this threat that is China in their daily lives? How do they deal with it and still go about their usual life?

Audrey Tang: We don’t think about it that much.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Is that ignoring it?

Audrey Tang: No.

Klaus Bardenhagen: What kind of psychological strategy is this?

Audrey Tang: We’ve been exposed to this constant threat so that it’s just point of daily life. We don’t think about it too much because we all understand that, for example, when there is a social media campaign that says people in Hong Kong, they’re paying very young people to murder police 2 million dollars – I don’t know which denomination – we know, “Oh, it’s the CCP doing its thing again.”

Audrey Tang: Previously, people say [Mandarin] , meaning 50 cents. Recently they’ve been raising the wage to 70 or 80 cents, [laughs] so people say [Mandarin] now. In any case, that’s just astroturfing and the landscape of state propaganda. It’s just part of daily life.

Audrey Tang: People make fun of it, make satire of it. There’s a trending song called “Taiwan” that is a parody of a song called “China.” The Taiwan song is from the satire networks. It was trending number one on video that makes fun of this kind of state propaganda.

Audrey Tang: People make fun of it, but they don’t seem to be too anxious about it. People who were super-anxious about it have moved on to other countries, [laughs] and everybody else who still live in Taiwan have some mental resilience.

Klaus Bardenhagen: That also could sound as if they don’t take it seriously. Isn’t it a serious situation? Taiwan still needs to stay alert all the time and be prepared for all scenarios.

Audrey Tang: Sure, for potential escalation of conflict. On the other hand, it’s been like that ever since I remember, I have memory. It’s been like that for at least the past 35 years. It’s all the time. For people who are born, like me, into this situation of constant tension, we probably have to make fun of it.

Klaus Bardenhagen: You also agreed with the president when she said in her speech that it’s important to have the military prepared and give it the necessary means? That’s the other side of the coin. Government also needs to focus more…

Audrey Tang: Of course, there need to be strategic developments to make sure that it’s not worth the cost to expand or to attack Taiwan. It’s basic strategy of economy. That’s always Taiwan’s main national defense strategy, which is to make it too costly to plan an invasion.

Audrey Tang: Again, that’s for as far as I can remember. As a young child, President Lee Teng-hui was saying that. When President Lee Teng-hui was saying that, maybe Dr. Tsai Ing-wen contributed to President Lee Teng-hui’s speech [laughs] because she was in charge of the Cross-Strait Affairs back at the time.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Taiwanese, when COVID-19 broke out, they were more worried about the whole pandemic thing than about what China has been doing for them? This was more of a reason to worry for them?

Audrey Tang: We’re, of course, concerned when, for example, the medical officers who were sent to Wuhan said that they’re hiding something from some people. The journalism community there was not as vibrant as it could, otherwise Dr. Li Wenliang’s message would be heard by more people.

Audrey Tang: Of course, our medical officers, when they reported that, we treated as if SARS will happen again. Yeah, we were concerned then about the lack of accountability and transparency when it comes to the Wuhan epicenter. On the other hand, we’ve been making yearly drills about SARS since 2004, so a long time, like 15 years now.

Audrey Tang: I’m saying that social mobilization, when there’s an escalating risk of pandemic or whatever, it’s just our daily life. It’s more like where special time, a time of constitutional crisis, or a emergency situation, there’s not that through the whole pandemic. Up until now, there’s no emergency situation declared in Taiwan.

Audrey Tang: We’re part of the constitutional deliberative democracy framework, but we were always mobilized if that’s what you are asking.

Klaus Bardenhagen: One strategy that Taiwan is well-advised to follow is to increase its international visibility despite the constraints it’s facing, UN and so on. How is your work contributing to Taiwan improving its position in the international community?

Audrey Tang: The hashtag #TaiwanCanHelp trended a little bit. Maybe I contributed to that hashtag a little. There’s other hashtags though, like #VivaTaiwan, which is even more trendy, and I have nothing to do with it. [laughs] It’s just normal diplomacy, I guess, that we identify things of common interest.

Audrey Tang: We spread a message, for example, saying, “Now that you have received some humanitarian donation of medical masks, found them to be very high quality, if you give us, our vendors really, some supply of your electricity and water and parts supply, they can turn out two million medical masks a day, 24 hours a day, N95, R95, you name it.” That’s one of our exports.

Audrey Tang: That’s machinery, something Germany is very good at. [laughs] We’re basically resuming the “Made in Taiwan” brand, and that brand has been subsumed a little bit on things like medical masks, which is a little bit more consumer-facing products lately. Now, with pandemic, we’re revitalizing the brand. I may have contributed something to taiwancanhelp.us.

Audrey Tang: The website is crowdfunded and crowdsourced. I helped getting the numbers of people dedicating their quota, their names and the whole open data set online.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Ever since you became minister, my impression is you get an extraordinary number of interview requests from international media.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Are you also like an ambassador for Taiwan?

Audrey Tang: You mean #TaiwanModel as in fashion model? [laughs] I guess so. I speak to American journalists on the morning, and Asian ones during the day, and European and African ones during the evening. Let me count the number of interviews today. It’s…

Audrey Tang: …seven, with two more to go. [laughs]

Klaus Bardenhagen: Wow.

Audrey Tang: Seven interviews a day.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Let’s turn back the time before you were minister. Let’s go back to the time you were in USA, Silicon Valley. Talking about your work at that time, is it correct to describe you as a programmer and also a start-up entrepreneur?

Audrey Tang: Yes, but I was just in Silicon Valley, physically, maybe for a year or so. After the advent of video conferencing, I’m mostly just traveling around the world and not really stuck in the Silicon Valley. I prefer to be in this time zone because in the daily stand-up meetings where Silicon Valley people wake up, this is midnight, and I only have one hour because I don’t like long meetings. We do our during that hour.

Audrey Tang: I’m working with Silicon Valley companies, but I wouldn’t say that I stayed in Silicon Valley for very long.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Did you also spend time in Germany traveling the world?

Audrey Tang: A little bit, but I mostly spent there as a child when I was 11 years old for one year. The travel, of course, brings me back to Germany a little bit. Actually, previously my primary school at the time, in Dudweiler near Saarbrücken near the Saarland border. I found that the school is still there, the Albert Schweitzer Grundschule.

Klaus Bardenhagen: How did that happen? I never saw you talk about that before, the one year in Germany.

Audrey Tang: My dad went there to study for his PhD. He covered the Tiananmen protest back in ‘89 and went to Berlin when the wall fell. He has long wanted to work with the Tiananmen exiles. His thesis was about the social action and networks in the Tiananmen protest.

Audrey Tang: Many of his research subjects are still pretty good friends of my family who were, at that time, exiles in the Europe, maybe some in France, some in Germany, and so on. I remember in the living room just watching the German television, I guess, to think how not to repeat the Nazi mistake or something.

Audrey Tang: The transition of this divisional network and along with a bunch of people who cannot go back to Beijing anymore, because they are on the blacklist.

Klaus Bardenhagen: You followed your father for his research work, is that what you said?

Audrey Tang: Yeah, he went to Germany.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Both your parents went there, the whole family, basically?

Audrey Tang: He went there first, I guess, for a year or a couple years. The whole family moved to join him for another year.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Why did you end up Saarbrücken and not in Berlin?

Audrey Tang: Because his professor, Professor Jürgen Domes, is in Saarland University.

Klaus Bardenhagen: It’s because his professor was there. What are your deepest memories from that time, apart from watching German TV? Anything that you took with you?

Audrey Tang: Quite a bit. The people, because I entered Germany in a year, usually there’s a gymnasium year. I attended the primary school instead, the fourth grade, because I don’t speak German.

Audrey Tang: I wonder what would happen if I had gone to gymnasium. In any case, [laughs] the people around me, the children, really, they’re far more mature than people in Taiwan around the same age.

Audrey Tang: I consider myself to be quite mature as a 11 years old, but I feel that the just, the ability of taking care of themselves, and the punctuality of time management,                                                       Pünktlichkeit                                                  , it’s really stellar in my classmates.

Audrey Tang: I found that interesting that it’s like the Pygmalion effect. If you treat children as adults, they behave as adults. If they treat them as babies, they behave as babies. That’s my main impression.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Skip forward again. 2014, you had already decided to retire and you were in Taiwan. The Sunflower…

Audrey Tang: To dedicate to purpose-driven, not profit-driven, work.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Then the Sunflower movement happened. I read that you were there the evening before the parliament was stormed.

Audrey Tang: Yes.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Were you also inside the parliament later?

Audrey Tang: Briefly, to install some ethernet cables.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Just once? You didn’t sleep there.

Audrey Tang: Once we had that cable, I can watch safely the live stream. [laughs]

Klaus Bardenhagen: What did it feel like to stand in the parliamentary chamber?

Audrey Tang: I tweeted about it. If you back to my tweet, I tweeted live.

Klaus Bardenhagen: On March 30, when the big demonstration happened, you were on the street as well with the crowds?

Audrey Tang: No, I was safely behind a screen while several g0v people did a live broadcast as part of the storming of the Executive Yuan. I watched the live streams.

Klaus Bardenhagen: You didn’t feel you were missing out on something historical in that moment?

Audrey Tang: No. The g0v communication team is one of the three neutrals. The other being the pro bono lawyers who protects the due process, human right, and also the pro bono doctors and nurses who protects the medical right.

Audrey Tang: We see ourselves as enablers for communication, but we’re not taking sides.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Talking about g0v, I tried to figure it out. I’m still not sure how to put it. Would g0v, vTaiwan, and Join, would these platforms exist in their current form, if it were not for you? How big was your personal contribution to those? It was always a team effort, but still…

Audrey Tang: I am just a petal in this huge sunflower field. [laughs] No, I don’t think I’m that large a part. I think I’m just a convenient figure model, as a national model, to talk about. g0v started without my participation.

Audrey Tang: It’s by clkao and a bunch of his friends on a Yahoo! Hack Day hackathon, where they visualized the national budget. Then of course whoever were committed. My contribution came the next year on 2013, working on crowd lexicography, the MoeDictionary, which is one of the early g0v projects.

Audrey Tang: My role in the g0v movement is mostly just like a shortstop. There’s something that needs to be done, and nobody seem to have spare time. I’m retired. I have plenty of time, just go and do it, and that’s it.

Audrey Tang: If you say, “If not for Audrey, something will not get done,” that’s not the case. It may get done a little later or less usefully as…

Klaus Bardenhagen: Also, vTaiwan, that was not something that…

Audrey Tang: That’s right. It’s Jaclyn Tsai’s idea. Chia-Liang Kao invited her to go to the hackathon. There’s 12 of us in front of a very large whiteboard, just drawing out things. Of course, I know how to code. I know something about interaction design.

Audrey Tang: I very quickly made an early prototype, along with a few other developers. The main development actually came from a few people from the Watch Out social enterprise. No, I don’t think I can take credit for any of it. I may accelerated or amplified the process.

Klaus Bardenhagen: The week is almost over. What did you do this week that was most important for advancing the concept of digital democracy in Taiwan?

Audrey Tang: This interview, which will touch so many people eventually… I’m not saying this jokingly. The interviews that I do with international media, I think, at this particular point, getting the message out that we managed to strengthen democracy during a pandemic, there really is no other more important message.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Every second Tuesday, you go on a trip to a different part of Taiwan?

Audrey Tang: Yeah, the last time was to Miaoli.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Who did you meet there? What did you learn there at that time?

Audrey Tang: As to who I met actually there’s a full trasncript. You can find all of it on the Social Innovation Platform. If you go to the Social Innovation Tool and click this Miaoli, you see exactly, precisely who I met, what questions they made, and how…

Klaus Bardenhagen: I’m asking for your personal opinion.

Audrey Tang: Personal opinion? I think the Miaoli one, my main impression is that the co-op movement which is feeling a little bit left out from this post-pandemic revitalization stimulus plan, because they’re neither a corporation, which would be Ministry of Economy, or strictly speaking, a community college, which would be Ministry of Education.

Audrey Tang: Nor a nonprofit, so it is a co-op that is with-profit, but the profit is equally shared among the co-op members. They were left out when we drafted the revitalization plan. I felt, I guess, inadequate.

Audrey Tang: The community colleges come after them back into the revitalization plan. That’s my main impression is that, “Oh, we did it again. We missed co-ops when designing the stimulus packages.”

Klaus Bardenhagen: Now, you will forward it to another ministry to make sure that they…

Audrey Tang: Yeah, of course, I didn’t do the stimulus package design. Actually, most of the things of the design, even the…I don’t know how to call it. Maybe you can help. This stimulus coupon…

Klaus Bardenhagen: Stimulus coupon, yeah.

Audrey Tang: OK, I think it’s that, OK. [laughs] That are triple component, that this stimulus coupon, I didn’t come up with any of the initial idea, because I’m not an economist. My main contribution is just to make sure that the mechanism design, especially using digital means, can be done without queuing.

Audrey Tang: My main contribution is just to avoid queuing. That’s actually the same as with the medical mask supply thing.

Klaus Bardenhagen: It’s also using the health insurance card as well, right?

Audrey Tang: Yeah, that’s a great thing. With the health insurance…

Klaus Bardenhagen: It’s like an update on the same platform, another application on the same platform.

Audrey Tang: That platform, the e-mask platform, was just changing a few lines of the tax filing platform, which also is applicable for housecar on convenience store. That was because a designer was so unhappy with our tax filing system that he filed an e-petition. We invited him in, Jung Su-yuen, to co-design the tax filing experience. It all adds up.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Somebody brought the idea to you, you told the other ministries, they implemented it.

Audrey Tang: That’s right.

Klaus Bardenhagen: How well do the other ministries work together with you? Some more, some less. Which ones are more hesitant to implement your ideas?

Audrey Tang: The ones that have state secrets, obviously, work very closely, because literally, they are part of the team, like the foreign service delegation sitting there. [laughs] The ministries who never send people, of course, are a little bit removed from our day-to-day work. They only meet every month.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Which ones are those?

Audrey Tang: The ones that didn’t send secondments? the Ministry of Defense never sent anyone.

Klaus Bardenhagen: They are not so much into transparency, right?

Audrey Tang: I don’t know. Of course, the Continental Affairs Council did not send – I know it’s not their official English translation – and so on. I guess most of the people-based ones did. The Ministry of Culture, Communication, Education, Law, Finance, Foreign Service, you name it. These are the usual – Agriculture – the usual people-facing ones, and Interior.

Klaus Bardenhagen: How many people are working on your own ministerial staff?

Audrey Tang: 21 full-time and about an equal number of interns. I don’t know how many we have. How many, 24 interns? The interns, how many are they?

Sheau-Tyng Peng: 30.

Audrey Tang: 30 interns. We have a big office here. [laughs]

Klaus Bardenhagen: Let me talk about the idea of digital democracy as something that’s aiming to change the way how society and the politics work together. How far along this way do you feel you are now, after more than four years? Are you halfway there? Are you almost there? What do you feel about this?

Audrey Tang: I don’t know, because this is nonlinear. You speak as if there is some arbitrary goal to meet. I guess Sustainable Goal being that arbitrary goal. In terms of mutual trust, I don’t think there is a limit to the mutual trust.

Audrey Tang: Soon as we discover that the, for example, voting mechanism, new ones gets invented all the time. There is no prediction how, what is the end result with 5G, with extended reality. How many more participation organizations can there be?

Audrey Tang: The underlying information communication technology and the application layer as the digital society, they keep doing this feedback loop on one another. There really is no end to it, as long as the underlying information communication technology keeps improving.

Audrey Tang: We keep seeing new possibility of democracy, because democracy is just an overarching description of the set of technologies.

Klaus Bardenhagen: There will never be the point where you say, “I did my job now. Now, they don’t need me anymore”? They will always need you?

Audrey Tang: Then Mephistopheles can claim my soul or something? [laughs] That’s a Faust line. No, I don’t think there will be such a point. I do this not because I want to achieve something. I never want to achieve something. I do this, because I’m having fun. I’m enjoying my work, and that’s it.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Still, you are minister in the cabinet now. Has that changed you in any way?

Audrey Tang: No. I’m a lowercase minister. It means I preach, if nothing else. [laughs] No, I am still a poetician. My main work is just poetics.

Klaus Bardenhagen: You don’t feel like the way you do things or the way your life works has changed in any meaningful way since you were pulled into politics?

Audrey Tang: Not really, because I was an intern, or I could say extern, for a year and a half.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Starting 2015?

Audrey Tang: Yeah, working with Minister Jaclyn Tsai.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Uber regulation, that was your first task.

Audrey Tang: That’s right. That was during my internship. I don’t think there’s any difference, really, of the kind of work I do. Actually, that’s my working condition.

Audrey Tang: When I negotiated with Premier Lin Chuan about my working condition – that is to say, radical transparency, location independence, and also voluntary association – the voluntary association part, I just showed him whatever I did as an intern to Jaclyn Tsai and said, “I intend on keeping doing that. I am not going to give any orders.” He’s like, “That’s fine.”

Klaus Bardenhagen: Of all the laws that come out of the government and go into parliament, how many of those are being debated for 60 days on Join before that?

Audrey Tang: I would say a vast majority. If you go to Join and look at the gazette, the [Mandarin] , the second section of it, you may find occasionally there is some laws that take less than 60 days because of, I don’t know, an emergency or something.

Audrey Tang: When they try to shorten it, like really short – like 7 or 14 days – people didn’t want that, like Labor Act. For the vast majority of cases, the legal pre-announcements do go through the full 60 days, especially if they have any concern about trade, international, or it affects the foreign stakeholders.

Klaus Bardenhagen: It really has become the norm by now, and not doing it is the exception.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, not doing it is exceptional. You have to say why.

Klaus Bardenhagen: All through the ministry and the subjects?

Audrey Tang: Yeah, so 60 is the norm, and always adhered – almost always adhered – for regulation. For draft bills, you have to write a special reason why you need to fast-track that.

Klaus Bardenhagen: This also goes for defense-related laws?

Audrey Tang: Sure, of course, why not.

Klaus Bardenhagen: How many people in Taiwan are actually actively participating in the debates on Join?

Audrey Tang: Depends on what actively means.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Have they ever logged in to the answers and questions.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, if they’ve ever looked at any single thing without pressing a button, then of course…

Klaus Bardenhagen: No, press a button.

Audrey Tang: Right, OK. If they just get mobilized into supporting one single petition, something like that level, then of course, we have more than 10 million unique visitors. On the other hand, maybe a very small fraction of them will actually propose a comment on a public commentary. Even less of that people will propose a new petition.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Like vote the comments up and down, agree, disagree.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, which is an easy way of…

Klaus Bardenhagen: That’s still a minority of people doing this?

Audrey Tang: Yeah, there’s a well-known 90-10-1 rule, and Join, like any other platform, follows that rule.

Klaus Bardenhagen: This means that the people who do not participate in this, for whatever reason, they have to accept the agenda that the other people are coming up with?

Audrey Tang: No, this is about discovery. There’s one extra platform, but if they call 1922, there’s a hotline. When you have something to say about this Central Epidemic Command Center, you probably don’t go to Join and click health and welfare. You probably pick up your phone and call 1922.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Still, if the consensus items are the ones that end up on top of the agenda once people actually get together, that is a pretty powerful way to set the agenda.

Audrey Tang: Indeed, but it doesn’t in any way effect how the legislator make their decisions. They still do a parliamentary vote and all that. All this does is that it maps out the stakeholder landscape for the legislators to contact and sets the agenda that the legislator better address these points, the ministry better address these points before this pass into law.

Audrey Tang: Otherwise, the parliament may get occupied again. It doesn’t affect in any way…As long as they give an account to people’s voices, it doesn’t affect, for example, the voting process in the parliament.

Klaus Bardenhagen: I really want to talk about one thing is, in fighting COVID, the government also used sending the messages to people who were at locations where the passengers of the ship or the soldiers have been.

Audrey Tang: It’s a kind of earthquake warning or a heavy rain warning.

Klaus Bardenhagen: In order to know who to send these messages to, there needs to be a data retention of the phone’s cell tower location data. This, all this being saved. It’s what in Germany you call                                                       Vorratsdatenspeicherung                                                  .

Klaus Bardenhagen: My impression is most people in Taiwan have not been aware that this data has been saved and is being kept all the time. How long is it being kept? How far back can the telcos go to look…?

Audrey Tang: The standard is a month, but I’ve also seen accounts that says 14 days. Either two or four weeks.

Klaus Bardenhagen: In that time, under certain conditions, it can be accessed by government agencies and by law enforcement for whatever reason?

Audrey Tang: You mean the travel, the cell phone…

Klaus Bardenhagen: No, I mean cell phone location data.

Audrey Tang: Cell phone location data. It can be accessed only in the sense of open algorithm, in the sense that each telecom keeps that data. There is no single aggregation to Jonghwa Telecom.

Audrey Tang: Each telecom may run some code that says, for people who have been in this place in the past five hours, send an SMS to them. It’s not about we, absorbing all the data to a central location and run the algorithm.

Klaus Bardenhagen: If there have been break-ins in a specific area, then the government can go and tell the telcos which mobiles have been logged in here on this day, on this day, and on that day? Then they can narrow down potential suspects, for example?

Audrey Tang: There’s a paper, our vice premier’s paper, where he explained exactly what has been done. I’m not a co-author of the academic paper. I have not been involved in that particular part. Contact tracing is not my purview.

Klaus Bardenhagen: No, I don’t mean contact tracing.

Audrey Tang: From what I understand from that paper, it is essentially an advisory call, not unlike an earthquake warning or a heavy rainfall warning. I understand your core point. The telecoms, as part of their normal operation, collect these data, anyway. I don’t think they extended their retention rule because of the pandemic. They are already retaining that far, anyway.

Klaus Bardenhagen: I don’t think most Taiwanese are aware that the data is being kept, anyway. Don’t you think so?

Audrey Tang: In the telecoms?

Klaus Bardenhagen: Yeah.

Audrey Tang: Well, now, they are.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Now, they are. [laughs]

Audrey Tang: Now, they are. [laughs]

Klaus Bardenhagen: Another thing is that I just read on Twitter somebody said he went to the doctor, and when he gave him his health insurance card, the travel warning back from February still popped up. Like, this guy has been outside of the country on February.

Audrey Tang: I saw that.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Is that supposed to be this way?

Audrey Tang: I have no idea. Of course, if it’s a note in the NHI database, of course, it could show up. If it stops being relevant, I don’t know why it’s still showing.

Klaus Bardenhagen: The promise is that we only use this big data aggregations as long as we need it, but now, you don’t really need to know the February travel data anymore, right?

Audrey Tang: Yeah.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Is that something you would try to get behind and find out what’s going on?

Audrey Tang: No, I’m happy to work with the Department of Cybersecurity to find out what’s going on. It’s just, at the moment, because I’m not part of the design or implement of that particular system, it’s mostly our cybersecurity officer and vice premier who is the head of cybersecurity.

Audrey Tang: It is their work. I understand the general algorithm of their work, but I’ve never seen any line of code. Of course, this seems like it’s not functioning as it’s supposed to, but I don’t know the technical details. I will talk about that next time I meet the cybersecurity department head.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Do you think the German attitude towards data privacy is a bit exaggerating? Are they worrying too much?

Audrey Tang: No. I think it’s a pretty healthy thing. I learned that from watching German television.

Klaus Bardenhagen: In Germany, for example, this location data retention is highly controversial.

Audrey Tang: I know.

Klaus Bardenhagen: If Taiwanese start to take an interest in this…

Audrey Tang: The thing is that CECC has, last time I talked to international journalists, 94 percent of approval rating, which is unheard of in liberal democracies. A few weeks before that, it was 91 percent, which still is very high.

Audrey Tang: Meaning that there’s only six percent or nine percent of the population who feels any uneasiness at this CECC measures. I’m one of the six percent, but I understand [laughs] that the vast majority of population think it’s proportional.

Klaus Bardenhagen: They also said that the population does not need to trust the government.

Audrey Tang: I know, I know.

Klaus Bardenhagen: They still do.

Audrey Tang: This is very strange. I think this could be attributed to two things. First, that the CECC Commander Chen really explained it really well. He is a really good presenter. When the journalist asked about these details, about digital fence, about travel history, tracking, and things like that, he explained it very clearly.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Transparency.

Audrey Tang: Every day, people learn a little bit more about the scientific reason behind that. He always, the second thing is, just like we invite people who complained about tax filing, everybody who complained about the way that he handled the situation, he says, “Oh, you have a better idea? Let’s work together,” and stuff like that.

Audrey Tang: It’s also participatory. This is not just about transparency. Transparency plus participation creates accountability. People feel Commander Chen is a very accountable person. He gives the full account.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Do you have one example where they got a critic and put him on the team?

Audrey Tang: The rice cooker thing.

Klaus Bardenhagen: The rice cooker? Yeah.

Audrey Tang: He publicly disinfected a medical mask.

Klaus Bardenhagen: You did, too.

Audrey Tang: I did, actually, yes. In German, no less. [laughs]

Klaus Bardenhagen: That was your voiceover?

Audrey Tang: I’m sorry?

Klaus Bardenhagen: That was your voice in German?

Audrey Tang: That was my voice in German, yes.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Oh, really?

Audrey Tang: The point is that, when Professor Lai Chen-yu did the experiment, the TFDA was highly suspicious of the result. It turns out traditional rice cooker lacks this venting mechanism, so that it keeps clanking when there’s water.

Audrey Tang: If you add no water, there’s no escaping air. It reaches 110 Celsius very quickly, and it goes down very quickly. It doesn’t destroy the PPE. It’s counterintuitive. Of course, the TFDA had their regulations.

Audrey Tang: Then because it’s solid scientific research, eventually, of course, the CDC said, “Yeah, it’s a good idea,” and the TFDA had then taught Minister Chen how to cook.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Let me quickly jump to another aspect, I also read that you said the aim is for people to know as much as possible about what the government is doing. People are already facing a situation where there is an information overload.

Audrey Tang: No, this is not about dumping data at people. This is about making cute dog pictures. Literally, cute dog pictures.

Klaus Bardenhagen: You mean the memes to explain…

Audrey Tang: Yeah, the [Mandarin] .

Klaus Bardenhagen: Still, OK, just in general, what do you think? How much longer are people able to deal with the kind of information flow they have right now, which will only…?

Audrey Tang: If it’s fun, if it’s like people following a manga – that is to say, comics and fictional universe storylines – they, of course, can absorb any amount of information. When I would read “The Lord of the Rings,” that’s how many megabytes of information?

Audrey Tang: Still, because it’s fun, it’s very interesting. I don’t speak the Elvish language, but there are people who are so dedicated they learn this Klingon or Elvish.

Klaus Bardenhagen: You mean as long as information is packaged in a palatable way, there is no limit to what people can soak up?

Audrey Tang: It’s just like interactive nonfiction.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Also, a lot of people, you said yourself that, when using Facebook, it’s like common sense not to spend all your day on social media. A lot of people are…

Audrey Tang: I removed the Facebook feed, yeah.

Klaus Bardenhagen: A lot of people are taking in more information than is good for them.

Audrey Tang: That’s just addiction. That’s not interactive nonfiction. That’s not sense-making. It’s just a way to keep that dopamine cycle running. That’s not what I mean when I mean collective intelligence.

Klaus Bardenhagen: You just said you removed your Facebook feed?

Audrey Tang: Yeah, it’s called the Facebook Feed Eradicator. Very, very good extension. You can install it yourself.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Still, Taiwanese politicians, like President Tsai, are quite heavily dependent on using Facebook to communicate.

Audrey Tang: No, I use Facebook all the time.

Klaus Bardenhagen: You are posting, but you are not reading?

Audrey Tang: No, I am reading. I am not reading the feed. Different thing. It’s easier shown than described. This is my Facebook, and it shows the quote of the day. That’s it.

Klaus Bardenhagen: You are not reading what other people are posting? Only if you specifically go to their page.

Audrey Tang: Yes, then I search for the latest mentioning of me, and I have a conversation. Or I search for part of a poem and have a conversation. There’s no possibility of filter bubble. It’s just me doing Internet search. I’m using Facebook as other people will use…

Klaus Bardenhagen: It has become like a search engine for Facebook posts, basically.

Audrey Tang: Exactly, yes.

Klaus Bardenhagen: You don’t see a problem with president making political announcement on Facebook first, thereby basically forcing everyone to go there?

Audrey Tang: I think she does that on Telegram first now. It’s just going to where people are. I’m not saying that this is the best way to spread political messages. I have my reservations, especially about algorithmic transparency.

Audrey Tang: On the other hand, I don’t think there is a full dependency on any particular platform, at this moment in Taiwan. People are now also doing more of the domestic platforms. Dcard and Meteor are doing quite well, as well as, of course, always PTT.

Audrey Tang: The fact that we have those social sector plan Bs, very active, and socially responsible, unlike Facebook, which is its own semi-sovereign entity, I think also speaks to the possible alternatives that we can take.

Audrey Tang: We’re not completely dependent on Facebook. However, I think any politician that wants to still engage in election, they cannot afford to ignore Facebook yet. That’s the political reality.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Would you hope that there are differently organized alternatives to Facebook and to Twitter that people would be using instead?

Audrey Tang: Or that Facebook will become a social enterprise.

Klaus Bardenhagen: As long as they can make so much money, they have no reason to.

Audrey Tang: There is this oversight board that’s ostensibly their judicial branch. We’re not seeing a legislative branch. [laughs] In any case, the point, yes, of course. I contribute to the open collective.

Audrey Tang: I work as a free software contributor myself. Of course, the Secure Scuttlebutt, the various open collective ways to join a completely decentralized social network, I think that idea is still very much alive.

Audrey Tang: I think the many Twitter developers actually are very sympathetic to that idea. I don’t know whether that will become the norm, but I know that people who prefer PTT or other real-time interactions see that it is an inevitable future for PTT.

Audrey Tang: The founder of PTT has this plan called ptt.ai that, again, achieving data justice and building a social network with no central controllership. It’s an open source project, just as PTT itself. I would say that it is, by far, the vision that has the most legitimacy among the Taiwan civic technologies.

Audrey Tang: We also live with the reality that Facebook is semi-sovereign and has a lot of mindshare.

Klaus Bardenhagen: My impression is that most Taiwanese, at least the ones I talk to, they like you, or at least they respect you. There are probably also a certain percentage of people who do not like what you are doing, or maybe who reject you personally. Who are those? Is it older people? Is it a certain political spectrum? You always say you have no enemies.

Audrey Tang: I have no idea. I don’t have enemies. That’s true. I don’t have a political party affiliation. If people don’t like me, because of certain labels they perceive, that’s entirely their freedom.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Let’s say people you don’t reach, where you realize, “I cannot reach through to them.” Who are they?

Audrey Tang: I don’t think there are such people.

Klaus Bardenhagen: You reach everyone in Taiwan?

Audrey Tang: No, I don’t think there’s people that I cannot reach. It doesn’t mean that I have already reached all 23 million people. What I’m trying to say is that I don’t think there are people, on principle, that I am foreclosing myself to.

Klaus Bardenhagen: There are?

Audrey Tang: I don’t think there are.

Klaus Bardenhagen: You don’t think there are? OK. Talking about data privacy, there was another thing I saw you mentioning, the Dr. Message app. This is basically a bot that you invite into your chats, and it’s reading all your messages.

Audrey Tang: It’s an antivirus thing, right? From Trend Micro.

Klaus Bardenhagen: This is also an infrastructure that could be used by non-responsible party to secretly read all your messages, get some kind of data out of there. How do you prevent that?

Audrey Tang: Antivirus company do that to your computer all the time. If you trust Trend Micro, you trust Trend Micro. If you don’t trust Trend Micro, you don’t trust Trend Micro. That’s how antivirus works.

Klaus Bardenhagen: You think most people are aware of that, that they will take a close look at who is this app made by? Is it open source?

Audrey Tang: I think so. I think so, yeah. I do think so. Otherwise, there would be no antivirus industry. It is, of course, the reputation of the company on the line.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Also, your aim is to reduce controversy and two camps fighting each other.

Audrey Tang: No, I am trying to harness the power of controversy so that people co-create.

Klaus Bardenhagen: You try to find common ground between the opposing camps.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, but without controversy, there is no attention from the public to co-create. I also need controversy.

Klaus Bardenhagen: If I look at the big reform projects of the last term of the government, the…

Audrey Tang: The big what?

Klaus Bardenhagen: The big reform projects, like marriage reform, pension reform.

Audrey Tang: Reform, OK.

Klaus Bardenhagen: The party asset thing, those have all been highly controversial. It doesn’t look to me like there was a lot of common ground that people or the government was…

Audrey Tang: There is a lot of common ground for marriage equality, which is the first one you mentioned.

Klaus Bardenhagen: I mean between the two camps, between the opposing camp and…

Audrey Tang: A lot of common ground. They all love marriage [inaudible 43:59] . Eventually, we legalized the bylaw, the individual-to-individual rights and duty, and none of the in-law, the family-to-family one.

Audrey Tang: That’s the common ground. The people who think marriage is between families are happy, because same-sex marriage is not about family values. People who only think the marriage is about the rights and duties are happy, because individuals can legally [inaudible 44:22] .

Klaus Bardenhagen: I know. They got the extra law instead of amending the civil code.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, so that’s social innovation right there. Now, a year afterward, there’s far more people agreeing on this common ground than before.

Klaus Bardenhagen: What about pension reform? The civil servants who are getting less money now, could you get some of those on board to support the general idea?

Audrey Tang: Yeah, I think the pension reform really is interesting, because the people who are currently public servants, especially younger ones, they stand to benefit from the pension reform.

Audrey Tang: The pension reform doesn’t reduce the total size. It just moves some from the older generation to the younger generation’s future. This is essentially a generational distribution thing. Of course, naturally, the younger public servants are more for it than the almost-retired or already-retired public servants. That’s the nature of this reform.

Klaus Bardenhagen: What was the last law initiative where the vTaiwan debate had a direct impact on? Was it the revenge porn thing that’s being debated right now?

Audrey Tang: Revenge porn, of course, e-scooters. I think there is going to be one about the [inaudible 45:38] , the limit of the pandemic countereffects and privacy. I think they’re scheduling a debate around that next, which will be very relevant.

Audrey Tang: If the pandemic is over-over, we need to do a postmortem, as we did after SARS, and say that we really improve on ones. For example, travel history, not [inaudible 46:03] way after the fact, and so on. I think vTaiwan is going to do that one. I don’t know, because I’m no longer part of the active vTaiwan working group now. I’ve not been for many years now.

Klaus Bardenhagen: At what point did you realize that it is your aim to find common ground between opposing groups, that you aim to have…It’s not consensus. You said some consensus.

Audrey Tang: It’s rough consensus.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Rough consensus.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, or common understanding, as I prefer to call it. Something we can all live with.

Klaus Bardenhagen: At what point did you realize, “This is what I want more people to be working towards, and this is what I want to do something to achieve”?

Audrey Tang: Probably around, I don’t know, ‘96, ‘97.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Did anything happen to give you that idea?

Audrey Tang: Yeah, I read this document called “The Tao of the Idea.” [laughs] That’s Internet engineering passports. That talks about the norm-building, the humming. The famous quote, “ [inaudible 47:07] the same presidents and building. We believe in rough consensus and run code.”

Audrey Tang: That’s political philosophy right there. I probably read the anarchism works. There was an anarchist at AQ around that time. I probably read all of this early anarchism thinkers, including, of course, Taoist thinkers, pretty early on.

Audrey Tang: It’s not until I read The Tao of the Idea, which must be around ‘96, ‘97, where this strikes me that this is a political philosophy.

Klaus Bardenhagen: I don’t see anyone looking at their watches.

Audrey Tang: It’s fine. We have maybe five more minutes before I have to do the [inaudible 47:50] .

Klaus Bardenhagen: Another big appointment for you this week was the consumption voucher implementation.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, stimulus voucher.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Stimulus voucher implementation press conference. Are you satisfied with the way things are going? You are not involved in everything, but it’s pulling quite a lot of, an usual amount of criticism, don’t you think so?

Audrey Tang: No, it’s…

Klaus Bardenhagen: Unlike the mask rationing.

Audrey Tang: No, it’s a co-creation power. No, the mask rationing got through a lot of criticism from pharmacists and people who had to queue. It’s now, we’re looking at it with very rose-tinted… [laughs]

Klaus Bardenhagen: President Tsai visited pharmacies and…

Audrey Tang: [laughs] Yeah. At the very first day, the pharmacists handing out those vouchers, and without swiping the NHI card, created this huge imbalance between the reported stock mask numbers.

Audrey Tang: This is a huge conflict, intentionally, because of the mask map. We, of course, worked very quickly to address that. It’s very hectic. Every week, we have to deploy new code to reduce the social tension caused by this distributed ledger system. I think this one is more mild, actually.

Klaus Bardenhagen: You are convinced it’s the best way to distribute, to get the money to the people, is by using a system like this?

Audrey Tang: There’s actually two ways. The digital way, where you spend 3,000 and get 2,000 cash back. I am going to use that.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Then where you go, you pick up your voucher, you buy your vouchers, and then you go shopping with them.

Audrey Tang: The paper-based one, I am not going to use that.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Yeah, but a lot of people are.

Audrey Tang: I know. I’m trying to reduce the number of these people. No, not the obvious way. [laughs] I try to encourage more people to use the digital voucher. First of all, because the digital voucher really gets cash back.

Audrey Tang: When you get 2,000 cash back, chances are, you’re going to spend it. It creates 5,000 GDP money. Not that I’m a fan of GDP, but I’m saying that it’s easier. Also, there’s fewer chance of digital voucher cross-queuing.

Audrey Tang: You simply cannot queue when you choose the digital way. Whether convenience store or post office, there is likely queues going on, if you choose the paper-based one. Because I’m mostly in it to avoid queuing, of course, I want everybody to use the digital one.

Klaus Bardenhagen: With the mask rationing system, you introduced the opportunity to dedicate your masks, to give them away.

Audrey Tang: To dedicate.

Klaus Bardenhagen: In this case, for example, not every foreigner living in Taiwan with an ARC is eligible. It’s only the ones who are married who can…

Audrey Tang: You mean with the stimulus coupon?

Klaus Bardenhagen: Yes.

Audrey Tang: I know. I know. I think it’s not very fair.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Not your decision, but you need to go with it, probably. It was made by some other ministry.

Audrey Tang: No, this is our Ministry of Interior. It’s about where to draw the line. The Ministry of Interior tells us that, for spouses that have a residency, just like in the 2008 coupon, they have a very fun database. The line is very blurred if they want to extend beyond that, including children who doesn’t have Taiwanese residency and things like that.

Klaus Bardenhagen: You could say somebody does or does not have an ARC. That’s a pretty clear line you can draw.

Audrey Tang: Or somebody who does or does not have an NHI card. Where do you draw the line?

Klaus Bardenhagen: I know of foreigners who would be qualified because they’re married here. They say they don’t find it fair that, for example, migrant workers, who also have ARCs, live in Taiwan long term, and pay taxes here…

Audrey Tang: And have NHI cards.

Klaus Bardenhagen: And have NHI cards. What about the possibility to dedicate your consumption vouchers to, for example, the migrant worker community so they…

Audrey Tang: I think it’s a great idea. Let’s make it happen.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Let’s make it. You will talk to the Interior Ministry about that?

Audrey Tang: You already can give the vouchers away to not-for-profit organizations, unless they happen to be the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, who doesn’t accept vouchers or donations or purchase from political offices. [laughs] In any case, I’m starting a trend. Not really trending now, but a hashtag on Twitter that encourage other people to donate to TAHR. In any case…

Klaus Bardenhagen: We have 6 or 7 hundred thousand migrant workers in Taiwan. You only need 6 or 7 hundred thousand people who are willing to say, “There’s someone who needs them more than me. I forgo my voucher right…”

Audrey Tang: There are natural allies for your idea, like One Forty, which is a NPO dedicated for that sort of thing. If you want to work with One Forty or something, I’ll be happy to say that people like me, who have no way to donate to the TAHR, may dedicate to One Forty. One Forty will take care of the migrant workers through an educational redistribution program or something like that.

Audrey Tang: If you manage to partner with One Forty or any social innovation organization who are willing to be the NPO window because I don’t run a NPO in Taiwan, then I’m happy to work with that to amplify the message. You have my word.

Klaus Bardenhagen: We still have some time. It’s only supposed to start in July, right?

Audrey Tang: That’s right. Do your work with One Forty or any other migrant worker…

Klaus Bardenhagen: I did touch on that subject in my reporting over the years, time and again. Unlike some other foreign reporters in Taiwan, I’m not that deep into that, but I know who to contact and to try…

Audrey Tang: That’s awesome. One Forty is actually a registered social innovation organization in SI Taiwan. I said publicly that I will dedicate my $3000 voucher money and the $2000 cashback to registered social innovation organizations. This is perfect if you manage to find someone that’s registered on the SI platform.

Klaus Bardenhagen: There will be a platform where I can log in and I’ll say, “I want to give my voucher to this organization?”

Audrey Tang: For the cashback, I think that will work. That will work.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Thanks a lot.

Audrey Tang: Awesome.

Klaus Bardenhagen: ICRT is the next one?

Audrey Tang: ICRT is the next one and about dedicating to particular NPOs. Probably it will be that it need to be registered somehow, that we have to know that is a real NPO that dedicates to a certain cause. Considering SI Taiwan has the registration platform because that leaves plenty of time for people who are interested in that sort of thing to register on the platform.

Audrey Tang: If it’s not on the SI platform, there’s no guarantee that, in the next two or three weeks, we can very quickly do the approval process that include them in the platform. We will try to work out some combinations between the SI platform and the vouchers. There will be a program.

Klaus Bardenhagen: If I find someone who’s willing to get into this, just get in touch with your office?

Audrey Tang: Of course. Actually, let ST know. We’re talking about combining buying power, that is to say SI, with the vouchers. People who want to spend their voucher money dedicated to a single organization with SI as registered on the                                                       SI Platform                                                  .

Audrey Tang: Specifically, of course, we’re talking about One Forty, which is about migrant workers, but this could potentially be extended to any SIOs registered in the SI platform. Maybe you can work with Shelly to see whether she has ideas.

Sheau-Tyng Peng: OK.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Thank you very much. This was…

Audrey Tang: …of course.

Audrey Tang: Wait. I am not taking your phone.

Klaus Bardenhagen: They all look so similar nowadays.

Audrey Tang: I don’t need another phone.

Audrey Tang: Cheers.

Klaus Bardenhagen: Thank you.