《TAIPEI TIMES 焦點》 New questions over faces in Lien campaign video

By Alison Hsiao / Staff reporter

Chinese Nationalist Party （KMT） Taipei mayoral candidate Sean Lien’s （連勝文） campaign team yesterday rebutted accusations that the young people featured in its latest video had no idea that they were filming for a campaign advertisement, let alone one for Lien.

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The video has already sparked controversy because the storyline focuses on young people fantasizing about how they would live if they were as wealthy as Lien’s family.

Questions were first raised last week after a young woman seen wearing a cat’s ears headband in the video responded to online comments about the video by saying that she “did not know it was an election campaign video when she got the notice [about the film].”

A self-proclaimed former colleague of another young woman in the video on Tuesday wrote on Facebook — in a posting that quickly spread — that her friend had not known she was hired to film a campaign ad, let alone that it was a promotion for Lien, adding that the friend was not a KMT supporter.

“I do not care how rich Lien’s family is and whether Lien is a princeling, but if he had to use deception to make [the youngsters] look real and pure, it is pretty sly,” the reputed former colleague wrote.

Lien campaign office spokesperson Chien Chen-yu （錢震宇） said the criticism came from “second-hand” accounts, as the actress had not commented herself and asked if the netizens posting criticisms had contacted Lien’s camp to confirm the rumors.

All of the young people who appear in the video, including the one with the cat’s ears headband, had signed letters of consent and had been informed that the commercial was for Lien’s campaign, Chien said.

The video was not filmed until all the actors and actresses’ consent forms had been obtained and they were all paid appropriately, he said.

Netizens should not spread rumors and risk running afoul of the law, Chien said.

However, Chien’s comments raised more questions about the commercial because at the video’s launch on Wednesday last week, KMT Legislator Alex Tsai （蔡正元）, Lien’s campaign office director, told reporters that the young people appearing in the ad had all been selected at random by the video’s director from people spotted on the street.

新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES