Audrey Tang is a cyber ambassador and former Minister of Digital Affairs of Taiwan. In the summer of 2024, she left her position in the government, which she had joined after the "Sunflower Movement." In 2014, students and activists occupied the Taiwanese parliament for several weeks to protest opaque and secretive agreements with Beijing that could have strengthened China's influence over the island. Tang helped communicate the demands of the demonstrators and mediated conflicts. After that, she became an advisor to the minister in charge of digital participation, and following the election of Taiwan's new president, Tsai Ing-wen, in 2016, she took on an official government post. Audrey Tang fought for data openness and transparency, so that ordinary Taiwanese citizens could access more information about the government's work and analyze it. Protecting elections from cyber interference, using memes, comedians, and technology to fight the pandemic, as well as using various digital tools to promote democracy through the creation of platforms that unite rather than divide society — these are some of Tang's achievements during her time in Taiwanese government.

Journalists Nataliya Gumenyuk and Angelina Kariakina talk to Audrey Tang about how Taiwan uses digital technologies to strengthen democracy, the ideology of Big Tech companies, humor in the fight against disinformation, lessons from the war in Ukraine, and how a childhood heart disease taught Tang to approach life differently.

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