by Sophia Brook
Foreign Interference Through Social Media
#8/23
04 August 2023
In November 2022, the Australian Senate established the Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media to examine the risk of foreign actors using social media platforms to interfere with democratic processes in Australia. The committee is made up of five full members, including representatives of the Liberal, Labor and Greens parties, and a number of participating (non-voting) members. It is chaired by Liberal Senator James Paterson, a known national security hawk and China critic, with Labor Senator Jess Walsh as Deputy Chair. In March this year, the committee received a briefing from government agencies, in April and July it held a series of public hearings. This week, the committee handed down its final report.
According to the report, ‘foreign interference is now Australia’s principal national security threat which risks significantly undermining our values, freedoms and way of life’. In the context of social media, the concern is that platforms are used to ‘pull and push information in four ways’: firstly, to gather intelligence on individuals, secondly, to collect behavioural data, thirdly, to intimidate members of diaspora communities and, fourthly, to influence societal and decision-making processes through disinformation campaigns. The recent increase in AI-enabled services was found to make these operations easier.
The biggest threat, as mentioned in the report, is posed by authoritarian regimes – China and Russia are both explicitly named – that do not allow open and free discussions in their own countries but use the freedom in other countries to influence public debates to ‘corrupt our decision-making, political discourse and societal norms’. To this end, the committee found, it made no difference whether the media platforms used were based in authoritarian countries or in liberal democracies.
At the same time, the committee clearly highlighted that not all social media platforms are the same. The issue of where it is based does make a difference when it comes to a platform’s willingness to cooperate with government inquiries and the question of legislating its usage. Even though platforms like Facebook’s parent company Meta and YouTube have been criticised for not being attentive or responsive enough, they still actively disabled or terminated accounts and channels running influence operations. In contrast, platforms ‘run in and run from authoritarian countries’, like TikTok and WeChat, were found to pose a ‘unique national security risk’ due to their lack of transparency and their general inability or unwillingness to cooperate with government inquiries.
Meta, Twitter, Google and YouTube all appeared in front of the committee in the course of the inquiry. TikTok also fronted the committee but was found to be unable to provide required information, for example, on how often data gathered by the company was accessed from overseas, and reluctant to provide witnesses. WeChat refused to appear before the committee and has been accused of providing ‘disingenuous answers to questions in writing’. Senator Paterson commented that this behaviour ‘demonstrated contempt for the parliament of Australia’.
According to media reports, the Chinese Embassy in Canberra has complained to DFAT about the Senate inquiry. Particularly the labelling of WeChat’s non-appearance in front of the committee as ‘contempt for parliament’ caused offence, as the committee is unable to compel foreign entities to participate in a hearing. Senator Paterson commented that this complaint said ‘everything you need to know about WeChat’s close connections to the Chinese Communist Party’ and that ‘the Chinese government’s displeasure with the work of the select committee will not deter us from completing our important work’.
Overall, the report lists 17 recommendations, including the introduction of a legislated ‘minimum set of transparency requirements, enforceable with fines’, which, if repeatedly not met, can lead to a platform being banned by the Minister of Home Affairs as a last resort. Among others, these requirements involve an obligatory presence in Australia, the proactive labelling of state affiliated media and the disclosure of any government directions they receive and any changes to their data collection practices.
Other recommendations include: extending the Protective Security Policy Framework directive to ban WeChat on federal government devices, establishing a national security technology office within the Department of Home Affairs, and clarifying that Magnitsky-style cyber sanctions (Autonomous Sanctions Act 2011) can be applied to cyber-enabled foreign interference actors. Promoting the digital literacy and the infrastructure of developing countries in the Indo-Pacific was a further suggestion. This last recommendation coincides with recent reports about China’s attempts to buy favourable press in Palau and the Solomon Islands.
Apart from Australian concerns, the report also looks at international developments, including in the EU, the US, Canada, the UK, New Zealand and the Pacific region, stating that ‘foreign interference, through social media and other methods, is an issue affecting liberal democracies around the world’.
