Taipei City Government's outsourced online marketing project has been accused of using public funds to buy overseas fake accounts to boost engagement — bad news for both the city government and the contractor.

• DPP councillor Yen Jo-fang presented data showing that more than 90% of the emoji reactions on one post by the city government's "I Am a Taipei Resident" fan page came from accounts in Indonesia and the Middle East.
• Ming Yen Marketing, the contractor, has amended the contract five times since winning the tender in 2024, with the budget ballooning from NT$3 million to nearly NT$9 million. It also extended the contract through 2027 on the grounds of a "subsequent expansion," meaning no new tender was required.
• The core of the allegation is that a single "like" costs only NT$2 on the market, yet the contractor used substantial public funds to buy fake accounts to dress up its KPIs when billing — the equivalent of using falsified documents to fraudulently claim budget funds.
• Chiang Wan-an pledged a comprehensive review of the contract and the reasonableness of its KPIs, said the contractor would be penalised for any breach, and promised a thorough investigation of social media marketing tenders across all Taipei City Government departments within one month.

The same day's council questioning brought another storm: a 10-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by a man who had paid her mother for sex, and 240 days after the case was reported she still had not been placed in care and had received zero psychological counselling sessions. Lawmakers from both the KMT and the DPP criticised the failure of the child protection system. Chiang Wan-an acknowledged gaps in the system and announced four measures, including the addition of short-term family-style shelter facilities, with a review meeting to be held on 4 September.

On the electoral front, registration for the nine-in-one local elections has begun. Hou Yu-ih publicly named Lee Si-chuan as his preferred successor; veteran Taoyuan councillor Chan Chiang-tsun has registered as an independent; and Changhua County councillor Chen Chung-chia was first to register in the race for county magistrate. Meanwhile, negotiations between the KMT and the TPP over a candidate for Zhubei mayor broke down, with Huang Kuo-chang accusing the KMT of failing to keep its promises.

Outlook: The results of the city government's one-month review of the tenders, along with the 4 September review meeting on the child protection case, will determine whether these two fires spread for Chiang Wan-an as the year-end elections approach.