Chapter 1Introduction and background
1.1On 24 November 2022, the Senate established the Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media (the committee) to inquire and report on the following matters:
(a)the use of social media for purposes that undermine Australia's democracy and values, including the spread of misinformation and disinformation;
(b)responses to mitigate the risk posed to Australia's democracy and values, including by the Australian Government and social media platforms;
(c)international policy responses to cyber-enabled foreign interference and misinformation;
(d)the extent of compliance with existing Australian laws and regulations; and
(e)any other related matters.
1.2Details of the inquiry were made available on the committee's webpage and the committee invited organisations, key stakeholders and individuals to provide submissions.
1.3The committee received 40 submissions, which are listed at Appendix 1 of this report. The committee received a private briefing from government agencies on 20 March 2023 and held the following public hearings for the inquiry:
20 April 2023 Canberra—local and overseas subject matter experts;
21 April 2023 Canberra—local and overseas subject matter experts and community-based organisations;
11 July 2023 Canberra—social media companies; and
12 July 2023 Canberra—Australian Government departments and agencies.
1.4A list of the organisations and individuals who attended these public hearings can be found in Appendix 2. The public submissions, additional information received and Hansard transcripts are available on the committee's website.
1.5This inquiry continues the work commenced by the Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media (2019 select committee) established during the 46th Parliament on 5 December 2019. The terms of reference (ToR) for the 2019 select committee were the same as for the current inquiry, with the exception that interference was defined as including the spread of misinformation but not disinformation. This has since been updated in the ToR for this inquiry in the 47th Parliament.
1.6The 2019 select committee tabled an interim report with seven recommendations on 17 December 2021 and a progress report on 21 April 2022. Appendix Three outlines those recommendations and any progress made to implement them, as of early 2023.
Acknowledgement
1.7The committee thanks all those who have contributed to the inquiry by making submissions, providing additional information, and appearing at public hearings.
Report Structure
1.8The report is comprised of eight chapters:
This chapter, Chapter 1, outlines the conduct and scope of the inquiry, and provides background information on what constitutes foreign interference.
Chapter 2 explains how foreign interference manifests in Australia, outlining the experiences of people within Australia who have been subjected to these campaigns.
Chapter 3 discusses international responses to counter foreign interference.
Chapter 4 outlines current Australian government responses.
Chapter 5 discusses ideas for action proposed by evidence to the inquiry.
Chapter 6 discusses platform-based responses and gaps.
Chapter 7 outlines how government can better support civil society in its responses.
Chapter 8 contains the committee comment and recommendations.
Notes on references
1.9References to the Committee Hansard may be references to a proof transcript. Page numbers may differ between proof and official transcripts.
Definitions
1.10Readers should be mindful of the following definitions when considering this report.
1.11Foreign Interference: clandestine activities carried out by, or on behalf of, a foreign actor which seek to interfere in decision-making, political discourse or other societal norms. Foreign interference is coercive, covert, deceptive or corrupting and is contrary to a nation's sovereignty, values and national interests.
1.12Foreign Influence: overt activities to advocate for particular outcomes or shape consideration of issues important to foreign actors. When conducted in an open and transparent manner, these activities can contribute positively to public debate.
1.13Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI): describes a mostly non-illegal pattern of behaviour that threatens or has the potential to negatively impact values, procedures, and political processes. Such activity is manipulative in character, conducted in an intentional and coordinated manner. Actors of such activity can be state or non-state actors, including their proxies inside and outside of their own territory.
1.14Disinformation: False information designed to deliberately mislead and influence public opinion or obscure the truth for malicious or deceptive purposes.
1.15Misinformation: False information that is spread due to ignorance, by error or mistake with good intentions/without the intent to deceive.
1.16Coordinated inauthentic behaviour (CIB): where groups of accounts are used to work together with the intention to deceive others. CIB can be either financially or politically motivated.
1.17Hybrid warfare: Hybrid warfare is a military strategy which blends conventional warfare, irregular warfare, and cyberwarfare with other influencing methods, such as fake news, diplomacy, and foreign electoral intervention and lawfare—the use of legal systems and institutions to damage or delegitimise an opponent.
1.18Cognitive warfare: The weaponisation of public opinion, by an external entity, for the purpose of (1) influencing public and governmental policy and (2)destabilizing public institutions. 'Cognitive' refers to the manipulation of emotional responses to an issue, which then affects the cognitive function of decision-making regarding that issue.
1.19OSINT (open-source intelligence): Publicly available information gathered from the Web to inform an investigative or intelligence cycle.
1.20SOCMINT: OSINT gathered from social media platforms.
1.21Internet/world wide web is comprised of three layers:
Surface web: this layer is only four per cent of the internet and is what most people access on a day-to-day basis. It contains all publicly facing websites such as Google services, news sites, blogs, social media and commerce sites.
Deep web: this layer is around 95 per cent of the internet and involves data that cannot be indexed by search engines because it contains sites that require logins. For example, sites that contain subscription services, banking, medical or government records.
Dark web: this is the area of the web containing illegal marketplaces. It must be accessed via special browsers such as TOR (The Onion Router) which provides anonymity.
What is foreign interference
1.22Foreign interference has been an issue of growing global concern in the past decade. For example, the European Union (EU) Parliament recently declared it was currently 'a target of diverse and aggressive foreign interference campaigns'.
1.23In Australia, the most recent annual threat assessment from the Director‑General of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) stated:
Australia is facing an unprecedented challenge from espionage and foreign interference and I'm not convinced we, as a nation, fully appreciate the damage it inflicts on Australia's security, democracy, sovereignty, economy and social fabric.
1.24The Department of Home Affairs (Home Affairs) stated that foreign interference 'involves foreign powers trying to secretly and improperly interfere in Australian society to advance their strategic, political, military, social or economic goals, at our expense'.
1.25ASIO submitted that foreign interference 'is particularly insidious in that it uses our strengths against us' and noted that perpetrators 'exploit our values, freedoms and trust, thereby undermining our way of life'.
1.26The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979 defines foreign interference as:
activities relating to Australia that are carried on, by, or on behalf of, are directed or subsidised by, or are undertaken in active collaboration with, a foreign power, being activities that:
are clandestine or deceptive, and:
- are carried on for intelligence purposes;
- are carried on for the purpose of affecting political or governmental processes; or
- are otherwise detrimental to the interests of Australia; or
involve a threat to any person.
A foreign power means: a foreign government; an entity that is directed or controlled by a foreign government or governments; or a foreign political organisation.
1.27Dr Seth Kaplan, a United States (US) politics expert and professorial lecturer at John Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, noted the practical impact of foreign interference:
It basically means that, instead of your democracy being a debate among people who live in the country, there’s an additional voice that plays a large part in the conversation, and that voice is controlled by a foreign government that does not have your best interests at heart. I would say that that’s the most clear danger. Again, it is basically direct interference in the public square—in the information that people are viewing, in the civil society organisations, in their ability to organise, in what types of civil society organisations might thrive or not thrive.
Foreign interference via social media
1.28Social media has quickly become a dominant form of communication and information sharing, with 4.62 billion people using social media globally. It is also fast growing, with nearly half a billion users joining social media in 2021 alone.
1.29The Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) noted that:
Social media is an integral aspect of everyday life, as it forms the foundation of many Australians' communications online. For example, it was estimated in February 2022 that some 21.45 million Australians (or 82.7% of the population) had active social media accounts, and that 52% of Australians use social media as a source of news.
1.30The AHRC further noted that 'social media can be used for purposes that both strengthen or undermine Australia's democracy and values', in that social media ‘can be used in ways that increase access to information and opportunities for the free exchange of ideas, increase the diversity of voice contributing to public discussions and allow for broader public participation in our democracy’, but on the other hand, ‘social media can also be used in ways that pose a threat to democratic processes through social media campaigns that spread misinformation and disinformation, undermine trust in public institutions and exacerbate divisions within society’.
1.31Because of its depth and reach into nearly every person's life, social media is being increasingly used as a vector for foreign interference. The DISARM Foundation has warned that 'the internet is enabling the spread and hyper‑targeting of disinformation at an unprecedented scale'.
1.32The Federal Bureau of Investigation (US) has noted that:
Foreign influence operations—which include covert actions by foreign governments to influence U.S. political sentiment or public discourse—are not a new problem. But the interconnectedness of the modern world, combined with the anonymity of the Internet, have changed the nature of the threat.
1.33The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) submitted that social media platforms now form one pillar of the information ecosystem that is 'critical infrastructure for the public to make informed decisions in a functioning democracy, akin to the criticality of the Australian electrical grid supplying power to people's homes'.
1.34ASPI further noted that the risks of foreign interference through social media are exacerbated by the changing news consumption habits, where more and more people are using social media platforms as a source of news instead of mainstream news outlets, and advised that 'this has implications for the Australian Government's ability to regulate and cooperate with social media platforms that share fewer values in common - such as transparency - and may have less power to influence'.
Misinformation and disinformation
1.35A recent EU report analysing foreign interference and FIMI found that:
Diplomatic channels are an integral part of FIMI incidents. Russia's diplomatic channels regularly serve as enablers of FIMI operations. They are deployed across a wide range of topics. China also uses diplomatic channels, mostly targeting the US.
Impersonation techniques become more sophisticated. Impersonations of international and trusted organisations and individuals are used by Russian actors particularly to target Ukraine. Print and TV [television] media are most often impersonated, with magazines seeing their entire style copied.
FIMI actor collusion exists but is limited. Official Russian actors were involved in 88 analysed FIMI incidents. Chinese actors were involved in17. In at least five cases, both actors engaged jointly.
FIMI is multilingual. Incidents do not occur in just one language; content is translated and amplified in multiple languages. Incidents featured at least 30 languages, 16 of which are EU languages. Russia used a larger variety of languages than Chinese actors but 44% of Russian content targeted Russian-speaking populations, while 36% targeted English‑speaking populations.
FIMI is mostly intended to distract and distort. Russia (42%) and China (56%) mostly intend to direct attention to a different actor or narrative or to shift blame ("distract"). Russia attempts to change the framing and narrative ("distort") relatively more often (35%) than China (18%).
FIMI remains mostly image and video based. The cheap and easy production and distribution of image and video material online makes these formats still the most commonly used.
Social media as part of wider foreign interference
1.36Foreign interference through social media does not occur in isolation. ASIO has summarised the issue of foreign interference via social media as follows:
Social media is a vector for foreign interference, not a threat in and of itself. However, foreign powers seek to do Australia harm through a variety of vectors and capabilities, including social media platforms, often as part of a broader campaign and an invariably integrated one.
1.37Dr William Stoltz, a national security professional and academic, told the committee that:
… any instances of foreign interference that are occurring via social media are typically going to be linked to a larger strategic objective and are therefore also going to be part of a larger suite of statecraft, both overt and covert, that a state would be undertaking.
1.38Professor Rory Cormac, from the University of Nottingham, noted that because of this, it was important that governments not be 'blinded by the novelty of the technology and forget the wider history and the wider concepts that states have learned over the years of foreign subversion and interference'.
Foreign interference for economic outcomes
1.39Foreign interference can be conducted by state actors as part of a wider push to influence other nation states, but it can also be conducted to seek economic outcomes. Ms Lindsay Gorman of the Alliance for Securing Democracy explained that:
We know that China and Russia—especially China—have very active espionage campaigns against liberal democracies to steal information, both in the traditional national security sense and also in the corporate espionage sense.
1.40CyberCX submitted that its intelligence has assessed that 'several foreign governments have the intent and capability to use social media to harm Australia's economic interests, and tactics can include 'social media disinformation or data breach operations designed to harm the value or reputation of a company, or to pressure a company or its executives to change their policies or views'.
1.41By way of example, Home Affairs noted reports that Australian mining company Lynas Rare Earths was targeted by an information operation seeking to undermine efforts to diversify global rare-earth supply chains.
1.42The following chapter outlines how foreign interference is manifesting in Australia.