Taiwanese protesters use Reddit to promote awareness of controversial China trade pact

Protesters used the forum to introduce international audiences to the 'Sunflower Movement'

Reading Time:2 minutes

From left to right: Sean Su, Chen Wei-ting, Lin Yu-hsuan and Oliver Chen. Photo: Screenshot via Imgur

Published: 8:30pm, 3 Apr 2014Updated: 9:57pm, 3 Apr 2014

Popular internet forum Reddit became a political tool this week as leaders of Taiwan's "Sunflower Movement" used the message board's Ask Me Anything section to familiarise international audiences with their cause.

On the evening of April 2, Chen Wei-ting, Oliver Cheng, Lin Yu-hsuan, and Sean Su hosted a thread on Reddit urging all forum users to ask them questions about the protests and demonstrations in Taiwan. All four students are organisers in the current occupation of the island’s Legislative Yuan.

"We are the student organisers that have taken over Taiwan’s Legislature for the past two weeks," the students wrote in their introduction, using the account name TWSunflowerRev. "We are upset that the government attempted to ram a huge services trade agreement with China through a legislative session without due process, in an authoritarian and undemocratic manner."

A screenshot of the Reddit messaging thread. Photo: SCMP Pictures

"The cost of this trade pact, simply put, will be our freedom and the future of [Taiwan]," Oliver Cheng wrote in the messaging thread. "It sounds like an exaggeration, but it really isn't. On the economic front, our economy is already 38% reliant on China, with China only 2.5% for us. This is unbalanced. And you can probably imagine the impact of this on our democracy [and] freedom of speech... This trade pact will increase this unequal dependency further in the future, maybe not in 1 or 2 years, but definitely in 10 [to] 20. And we fear that this will be a course we cannot reverse."

"You guys are so brave," one Redditt commentator wrote in response. "I'm a student and I couldn't even imagine overtaking a Taco Bell."