There’s nothing inherently funny about the novel coronavirus. The latest World Health Organization numbers indicate that more than 383,000 people have died from Covid-19, and the number of confirmed cases worldwide has eclipsed the 6 million mark.
But Taiwan, which is lauded for its success in containing the spread of coronavirus, has adopted humor as a tool in fighting the pandemic. Speaking at the TED conference this week, Taiwan’s digital minister Audrey Tang explained how a tactic called “humor over rumor” has effectively quashed misinformation about Covid-19.
Every time a hoax surfaces on social media, Tang and her band of civic hackers unleash a joke containing the facts of the matter within two hours of spotting the post, based on the idea that since people like to share funny memes on social media, doing so allows the government to wrest control of the narrative. Tang also said that government agencies have employed professional comedians as “engagement officers” to help in the cause. If they miss the two-hour window, Tang’s team locates the perpetrators and recruits them as allies in Taiwan’s coronavirus effort.
Inviting outsiders into the process speaks to Tang’s own journey to civic service. Before joining the government in 2016, Tang was a civic hacker who worked during the Sunflower Movement of 2014, a large-scale student protest which called for greater transparency in the government’s trade dealings with China.