The China-friendly CTi News (channel 52 on cable) is no doubt a thorn in Tsai’s side and it’s known to whip up fake news, but is that grounds for revoking its license? Even Trump would not do that to CNN as much as he despises it.
CTi and its parent corporation Want Want China Times isn’t shy about their ties to the CCP. Its CEO Cai Yanming was fined back in 2012 for taking money from the CCP. He admitted it as much in a recording, saying:
「其實這個事情我不瞭解，但是這我也有去問，他跟我講，這被人罰一百八十萬（台幣）了，有啦，有發生啦，被罰了一百八十萬，法律上就是被罰就罰了嘛，但是我要講的是什麼，為什麼不讓我們賺光明正大的錢？ 為什麼要讓我們賺偷偷摸摸的錢？當然這是過去的一些陸委會規定什麼，我是不知道，但是，我認為，應該讓我們去賺這個錢。」
That was before the the Tsai administration passed the Anti-infiltration Act, amended the National Security Act, and the Act Governing Relations between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area.
If he is caught again today, there’s sufficient legal grounds to shutdown CTi.
Freedom of speech is important, but it is also important to not let money, especially money from a foreign adversary, drown out voices within Taiwan.
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From the report below: note what Want Want China Times founder Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明; Cai Yanming) says vs what his media outlet does:
What Tsai Eng-meng said at the hearings:
“I grew up in Taiwan and built a business in China. Both are my hometown. All I hoped for is be a platform for cross-strait communication,” he said, adding that he wondered what he had done to make people think he had betrayed Taiwan.
Tsai said he was saddened to learn that China Times’ reporters are despised by their peers because many young people think badly of him.
All he wants is for people in Taiwan to live a good life, he said.
Now compare this to what his media group has done (and crucially what it has not done):
Expert witnesses [at the hearings] unanimously criticized the performance of CTi News, with two of them urging the NCC not to renew its license.
[CTi News] allocated a disproportionately high percentage of its reports to former Kaohsiung mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) when he was running for the post in 2018, they said.
One of them said that the amount of fines accumulated in the past six years are evidence that the news channel’s internal quality control mechanism had failed.
CTi News is the only channel in the country that did not report on the democratic uprising in Hong Kong and Beijing’s persecution of Uighurs, they said, adding that it lacks diversity in content.
Leaving aside the farcical coverage of the 2018 Kaohsiung election, what kind of media outlet in Taiwan would not report on the events in HK and allegations of genocide in Xinjiang? These guys are justly reviled for their emphases and omissions. Should they be shut down for them?
Source: https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2020/10/27/2003745866
Guy
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This doesn’t look good. Don’t shut it down unless they were actually threatening Taiwan’s security.
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CTi is a blue news outlet just like Fox is a conservative news outlet. Most people know that. Of course, there was disproportionate coverage favoring Han Kuo-yu’s campaign and omission of HK protests. What did you expect? But lack of diversity is not a crime and can hardly be grounds for shutting down a news outlet. If Taiwan does that, how is it different from China?
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They key difference for me is if it can be proven that it is funded/driven by the CCP, it should absolutely be shut down.
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Favouring Han as a candidate is one thing. But deeming the events in HK not to be newsworthy is another! It should give you a hint of what we are dealing with here.
Guy
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Yeah, they’re self-censoring. Why?
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Exactly. I deapise them. But if Tsai (the president) ahuts this down, it is ammunition against her. And possibly rightfully so. It would create such a problem for her image. Find another way. Historically, typhoons and flooded rivers were the proper way to deal with such threats.
Attacking free speach will land her a failed term deapite all the accomplishments.
Perhaps declarig ccp, not china, an enemy state officially would satisfy all sides realistically?
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This is something stupid that could harm the long term prospects of the DPP. I hope they aren’t foolish enough to mess with the free press.
The shoe has apparently dropped:
Guy
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Excellent.
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Fuck em. China shills.
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This is a tough one. Does free press include a media funded by a country we are technically at war with?
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Yeah, that’s an easy one. 
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Could be argued that they’re not technically ‘independent’ and controlled by A government.
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I have zero problems with partisan news outlets that do not hide their biases.
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Me either, outside of bashing them for their biases outside of just reporting the news. But it gets tricky if they are receiving funding from a country/gov we are at war with still. Is that covered under free press? I’m not sure. I stand by the principle of free press seriously, but this is a pretty interesting case.
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Good question. I agree with both it and your lack of conclusion - in theory, I would be more concerned about networks that receive Chinese money who aren’t open about doing so. I am a near absolutist on free speech. I am also inconsistent because I don’t have a problem in limiting reach of a country that doesn’t permit the same in return.
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I guess the question is… Should we tolerate the intolerant?
I believe unlimited tolerance would lead to complete intolerance.