A clumsy online campaign backing Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an's son has backfired, turning the mayor into a meme and handing his opponents an easy win.

• Dozens of near-identical posts claiming to be "junior high classmates" appeared on Threads defending the mayor's son over his publicly funded exchange spot.
• The accounts traced back to Indonesia, misspelled the son's name, and slipped into simplified Chinese characters used in China rather than Taiwan's traditional ones.
• One account was caught taking orders from commenters — rewriting its story in Vietnamese and Japanese on request — before its AI service ran out of paid credits.
• Chiang did not deny any link to the accounts, saying only that online talk is often fake and voters can judge for themselves.
• Being mocked is more dangerous than being attacked: swing voters may not know a politician's party but will remember he looked ridiculous.

Outlook: Expect the mayor's office and his party to spend the coming days on damage control as the mockery spreads.