Some weird bot activity around the air raid alert today

A missile alert has just gone out in Taiwan. A few hundred press are in a room with foreign minister Joseph Wu right now - he says it's a satellite launch and nothing to worry about. Clarification hopefully incoming.

The Chinese text in the alert says it's a satellite. The English says missile. Alarmingly poor translation.

We're seeking clarification on the translation AND why a satellite launch triggers a Taiwan-wide emergency alert. This didn't happen when there were actual missiles during the Pelosi drills.

Defence ministry: At about 1503, China carried out a satellite launch mission on a certain type of carrier rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan. The flight path of the rocket passed over China’s southwest airspace and was at a height outside the atmosphere.

The MND is working on a response about why the alert was triggered

Taiwan's ministry of defence has apologised for what it says was an oversight in the English language used in the alert. "The wording of the original system was not updated to accurately express that the launched object was a satellite rather than a missile."

Still no response on why an alert was sent. Here's an article from December 10 about a very similar sounding launch which - afaik (pls correct if I'm wrong) - did not prompt an alert.

We’re at a KMT rally in Chiayi and the satellite/missile alert has quickly made its way into speeches attacking the DPP (currently via Han Kuo-Yu)

Strident response from the defence ministry: national air defence warnings are issued in accordance with the military’s emergency response regulations, “and will not be interfered with by party politics”. Says the rocket trajectory was "abnormal", triggering the alert.

@wmdglasgow Yikes! Even more reason for @MoNDefense to have responded in a more timely manner.

[@heldavidson I love your use of the word "incoming!"]

Smells like the classic CCP manipulation

Wouldn't attribute to malice what can be explained through this platform being carried by bots recently. This notable example:

DPP rigging the elections again

@BethanyAllenEbr 🤔

Wow that's a lot of receipts, well done!