Facebook: From the 'Stealing Vegetables' Craze to the Double-Edged Sword of Digital Democracy, Defining Taiwan's Social Blueprints for Twenty Years

30-Second Overview:
The development history of Facebook (FB) in Taiwan is a compressed version of a 20-year digital social history: from the 2009 "stealing vegetables" craze of Happy Farm, to the core online mobilization of the 2014 Sunflower Student Movement, to the 2025 "FB refugee wave" triggered by Meta's speech censorship controversies. It serves simultaneously as Taiwan's largest public discussion square and the most active front line for cognitive warfare. As of the end of 2025, Facebook's reach in Taiwan remains above 75%, but its market share has continued to decline from 61% in 2022 to below 50%, shrinking for three consecutive years.

"Did you steal vegetables today?" This greeting, which swept through Taiwanese offices and campuses in 2009, originated from a web game called Happy Farm¹. At the time, Facebook, which had just entered the Taiwan market, leveraged this simple game that made office workers set alarms to wake up in the middle of the night to "harvest crops" to break through 5.7 million visits in Taiwan in August 2009². Taiwan even became one of the most popular markets for Happy Farm globally³.

📝 Curator's Note: In an era before smartphones were widespread, Facebook used "games" as the lowest-threshold social method to move Taiwan people's social circles from the physical world to the cloud, allowing it to stand out in competition with Plurk (Pulang), a microblogging platform popular in Taiwan at the time⁴.

From Harvard Dorms to Taipei Offices

The origin of Facebook was in February 2004, when Mark Zuckerberg and his Harvard roommate set up "TheFacebook" in a dormitory⁵. Initially just a campus contact book, its real-name system and closed-circle characteristics spread rapidly among Ivy League schools. In the United States, Facebook started as a student social network; in Taiwan, it directly captured the office workers and middle-aged/elderly groups with the strongest purchasing power through social games like Happy Farm⁶, laying the foundation for "all-age" coverage.

Meta's office in Taiwan was established in 2015, with its initial three employees squeezed into a small conference room. In 2019, the Taiwan office moved to the Nanshan Plaza building in Taipei, occupying an entire floor of 804 ping (approx. 2,650 sq meters), equipped with Taiwanese employee facilities such as KTVs and mahjong tables, signaling a long-term investment in the Taiwan market⁷.

The Mobilization Map of the Sunflower Student Movement

If 2009 was the "Social First Year" for Facebook in Taiwan, 2014 was the "Political First Year."

During the March 2014 Sunflower Student Movement, Facebook demonstrated惊人的 mobilization energy: live broadcasting, material fundraising, and discourse dissemination all occurred synchronously on Facebook. Academic research shows that Facebook usage related to the student movement had a significant impact on whether college students participated in the movement; the level of participation brought by weak ties (strange netizens) was even higher than that of strong ties (family and friends)⁸.

However, Facebook's role in this movement was also double-edged—information overload, the spread of misinformation, and community polarization emerged simultaneously⁹. This movement completely changed Taiwan's political ecology, making Facebook the foundational infrastructure for voice dissemination for civil society, political figures, and NGOs.

DIBT Expedition and Fan Page Trading

The expansion of Facebook's influence in Taiwan also made it a front line for cross-strait cognitive warfare.

In 2016, following the Zhou Ziyu flag incident, some Chinese netizens launched the "DIBT Expedition" (帝吧出征) action through Facebook, flooding comments on relevant Taiwan fan pages and forming cross-border cyber conflicts¹⁰. In 2019, the Investigation Bureau publicly stated that it was continuously monitoring cross-strait forces attempting to buy Taiwan fan pages for political propaganda¹¹, revealing the structural vulnerability of Facebook as a cross-border information battlefield.

Algorithm Black Boxes and Media Dependence

As Facebook transformed into Meta, the algorithm black box, opaque ad revenue sharing, and control over news media traffic gradually sparked dissatisfaction. Many Taiwan news media rely heavily on the traffic brought by Facebook; any adjustment to the algorithm could severely impact revenue, creating an inescapable "traffic dependency"¹².

For a long time, there have been controversies regarding the censorship standards of political discourse on Facebook in Taiwan, labeled as "Red FB" and "Green FB"¹³. Creators have also had their accounts suspended without warning, causing years of accumulated digital assets to vanish overnight¹⁴.

2025: The FB Refugee Wave

The most severe crisis of trust erupted in 2025. Reports indicated that Meta collaborated with specific political forces to conduct opaque censorship and down-ranking of popular posts in Taiwan and Hong Kong regions, with many accounts discussing public issues being banned without warning¹⁵. The famous "FB Refugee Wave" in Taiwan's internet history was thus triggered—approximately 20,000 users flocked to decentralized platforms like Mastodon¹⁶.

Meta officially clarified, stating that it never accepted content censorship from the Chinese government for Taiwan users, nor did it share Taiwan user data; content censorship is handled by the Taiwan-based Traditional Chinese team in accordance with global community guidelines¹⁷.

📝 Curator's Note: When social platforms become public infrastructure, their censorship standards directly impact democratic operations—this goes beyond the scope of commerce.

Anti-Fake News Actions

Facing the complex online environment, Meta has also promoted anti-fake news strategies in Taiwan. From October to December 2019, Facebook cracked down heavily on Taiwan content farms that "violated content guidelines," with over a hundred fan pages, including "MiXun" (Secret Message), being centrally taken down¹⁸. In November of the same year, Facebook held a hackathon in Taipei themed around "fighting misinformation"¹⁹.

Current Status: High Reach, Continuous Loss of Stickiness

As of the end of 2025, Facebook's reach in Taiwan remains the highest among all platforms (over 75%), but its market share has continued to decline from 61.22% in 2022²⁰. Meta's Threads, however, has risen rapidly in Taiwan following the 2024 Taiwan election due to a more open atmosphere for political discussion²¹. According to 2026 data, Taiwan users contribute 21.08% of Threads' global total traffic, making it one of the countries with the highest participation globally²².

Facebook's story is a microcosm of Taiwan's 20-year digital transformation: it taught Taiwan people to socialize in virtual farms, learn civic mobilization on the streets outside the Legislative Yuan, and rethink the boundaries of digital trust amidst censorship controversies. Today, it sits in an awkward position—it is still the largest platform, yet also the one people complain about most.

Further Reading:

• IG: From Photographers' Filters to Taiwan People's "Crispy" Anxiety — Another key Meta platform in Taiwan, forming different usage scenarios with Facebook: Facebook is for "contacting elders," IG is for "looking at oneself," and Threads is the "big argument square."
• Threads in Taiwan — Why do Taiwan people call Threads "Crispy" (脆)? From the FB refugee wave to "Crispy" being the global traffic leader, the unique position of Taiwan users in the Meta ecosystem.
• History of Taiwan Internet Community Migration — From BBS, Wretch, Plurk to Facebook, IG, Threads. To understand why Facebook rose and began to recede in Taiwan, this complete migration map is necessary.

References