Experts warn of foreign interference in Voice campaign
Security experts are warning foreign actors are taking advantage of the Voice Referendum to sow division. Researchers at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute have found fake social media accounts linked to the Chinese communist party have been spreading misinformation about the voice.
Transcript
00:00 So over the past few months, when we've been looking at online conversations around the
00:06 voice referendum, especially on social media, we've actually identified a small sort of
00:11 network of coordinated inauthentic accounts which were trying to sort of amplify division
00:17 around the debate, as well as amplify negative posts about the voice referendum.
00:23 And so what are some specific examples that you can point to of Chinese-run sham accounts
00:29 and how can you prove they're Chinese-run amplifying division?
00:34 Yeah, for sure.
00:35 So this small network that we looked at starting in about sort of June this year was amplifying
00:41 division around the voice and based on, I guess, behavioural indicators, for example,
00:47 like what times these accounts like to post, as well as the type of personas they like
00:53 to build, based on, I guess, previous attributions from social media companies on networks which
00:58 they've linked to sleep with Chinese government activities, we're able to make a very confident
01:03 assessment that these new networks were very likely linked to the Chinese government.
01:09 And what are some examples of what they were saying or doing?
01:14 Yeah, so some of the examples that these accounts were, I guess, amplifying, they were taking
01:20 sort of legitimate criticisms about the voice as well as legitimate concerns by other Australians
01:27 about the sort of debate around the voice, and either retweeting or reposting those particular
01:32 narratives.
01:33 One example is that there was some concerns that the sort of divisive and intense conversation
01:39 around the voice may have a negative impact on Indigenous Australians.
01:42 So many of these different accounts that we believe were linked to the Chinese government
01:46 were trying to amplify these similar sort of concerns as well.
01:50 And were these accounts getting much and what they were retweeting or what they were doing
01:54 on and maybe you can mention what platform they were working on as well.
01:59 Were they getting much attention or traction?
02:01 Sure.
02:02 So the majority of these, I guess, accounts were based on X or also known as Twitter.
02:09 We did notice that a few Australians, what we perceive to be sort of legitimate Australians
02:13 actually engaging in some of these accounts.
02:15 But overall, I think the campaign had very little impact actually on the voice sort of
02:22 conversation.
02:23 There was some sort of retweets, some likes, but in that case, they had a very low impact
02:28 actually on the conversation itself.
02:31 So what is the benefit to China in trying to stoke this?
02:36 So in this case, I think it's part of a broader campaign to actually try and undermine Australia's
02:41 social cohesion as well as trust in the Australian government.
02:45 The Chinese government in this case sees a vulnerability in democratic societies where
02:50 the government relies on, I guess, public support and accountability from its population.
02:55 And so by, I guess, wedging a divide between the public and the government, it makes it
03:00 harder for the government to make sovereign decisions and implement foreign policy decisions
03:05 as well.
03:07 And is this similar to what the Chinese have?
03:11 Is this what's been found that the Chinese are doing in the US?
03:14 Yeah, so we see this tactic in multiple different countries around the world, especially in
03:21 the US.
03:22 And MEDA actually had released a report late last year talking about how a similar network,
03:28 which was linked to the Chinese government, actually trying to stoke division around the
03:31 midterm elections in the US last year as well.
03:34 And is that an example of how effective this can be?
03:41 So I think in this case, even in the sort of campaign targeting the US midterm elections,
03:46 there was very little impact.
03:49 And so far, we've seen a small amount of engagements with these networks, but overall, they're
03:56 sort of failing to generate what we see as probably the intentions of the Chinese government.
04:02 But I think the way to think about this is to sort of point out that these are assistant
04:07 and very aggressive tactics to sort of covertly influence publics in other countries.
04:13 And over time, we should be concerned about potential impacts in the future if social
04:17 media companies and governments don't do anything about it now.
04:19 And what should the social media platforms be doing with these accounts as far as you're
04:23 concerned?
04:26 So the one thing we're focusing on the moment is actually building more transparency and
04:30 giving information to researchers, including think tanks and academic institutions to actually
04:36 try and study these types of operations.
04:39 The only reason, the only way we were actually able to identify these networks as being linked
04:45 to the Chinese government was based on Twitter's former attributions of state-backed information
04:50 operations.
04:51 And those are really important in creating sort of an empirical database for us to sort
04:56 of create a model of what we think is coordinated inventive behavior.
05:01 And since Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter and now X, that access to information, that
05:06 sort of disclosure of state-backed information operations has dropped off.
05:10 And this isn't just a problem for Twitter, X or Facebook or YouTube either, but also
05:15 applies to TikTok and other social media companies about sort of setting the right standards
05:20 and access to information.
05:21 So then people in the population can kind of independently assess state-backed or potential
05:26 state-backed influence operations.
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