Taiwan has appeared in the US State Department’s 2015 Human Rights Report on Wednesday for an unexpected reason: instant-messaging application.
The report discusses the practice of using messaging apps to conduct business afterhours adopted by some Taiwanese employers.
According to the report, the main human rights problems recorded in Taiwan during 2015 were fishing companies’ exploitation of migrant laborers, brokerage agencies' exploitation of domestic helpers, and official corruption.
But the report also pointed out in a section on working conditions that labor dispatching, or temporary worker, programs and employers’ use of instant-messaging applications to conduct business afterhours are factors that undermine working conditions in Taiwan.
In terms of freedom of speech and press, the report said the independent media were active and expressed a wide variety of views without restriction. There was, however, concern about the impact of the increasing concentration of media ownership on freedom of the press.