Members of an online forum from the Chinese mainland escalated their verbal attacks against a group of Taiwan netizens on Facebook on Wednesday night, following the latter group's support of reportedly pro-Taiwan independence singer Chou Tzu-yu.
Members of LiYi, the biggest forum on search engine giant Baidu's online community Tieba, launched an "attack" on the Facebook pages of several Taiwan media organizations - including two famous Taiwan media, Set News and Apple Daily - at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday. Attackers attempted to paralyze the pages by leaving a massive number of stickers in their comments areas.
According to a detailed and clear plan posted online, the mainland netizens demanded that all those participating in the campaign change their profile photo to China's flag, stressing that their aim is simply to show their disapproval of Taiwan independence without targeting all Taiwan residents.
The attack followed a sticker fight on Saturday on the Facebook page of Chinese mainland actor Lin Gengxin, who joked about Taiwan pop singer Chou Tzu-yu's apology video on his Sina Weibo account, irritating some Taiwan netizens.
Chou, a member of South Korean girl group TWICE, was recently accused of being in favor of Taiwan independence by Huang An, a well-known singer and TV host from Taiwan.
Taiwan Net users left numerous vicious comments on Lin's Facebook page, while their counterparts in the Chinese mainland quickly struck back by posting stickers that ridiculed the Taiwan netizens.