TIPO Director-General Wang Mei-hua Proposes Censorship Law to Block Foreign Websites, Retreating after Nationwide Outcry

On June 3, 2013, the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) of the Ministry of Economic Affairs of the Republic of China issued an official statement announcing the complete withdrawal of its controversial proposal to amend the Copyright Act, which would have allowed administrative agencies to block foreign websites accused of copyright infringement. The dispute originated in mid-May 2013 under the leadership of then-TIPO Director-General Wang Mei-hua (wife of attorney and future politician Ku Li-hsiung). TIPO proposed a mechanism authorizing the agency to bypass judicial review and directly order Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block designated offshore websites deemed to be "obviously and seriously infringing" via DNS or IP filtering. The draft bill immediately ignited a massive backlash across the Republic of China's internet community, legal scholars, and human rights groups. Critics condemned the administrative overreach, labeling the proposal a domestic equivalent to a "Great Firewall" or a form of "internet white terror" that severely threatened freedom of speech and the free flow of information guaranteed by the Constitution. A nationwide online petition garnered tens of thousands of signatures within days. Faced with overwhelming public pressure, TIPO abandoned the bill on June 3, pledging that any future actions against infringing websites would remain under the jurisdiction of the judiciary. This event is widely remembered as a milestone in the Republic of China's digital rights movement, where net citizens successfully organized to defend internet freedom.