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With the federal election campaign underway, experts are warning migrant communities could see more misleading and false information before casting their vote.
Migrants, especially those speaking English as a second language, are disproportionately targeted during crises, elections and referendums when mis- and disinformation are amplified, overseas research has found.
Ahead of this year’s federal election, Australian experts set out to understand how and why it spreads among these communities.
It comes as researchers also warn the country is “under-prepared” to address misleading information circulating in non-English speaking communities.
Sukhmani Khorana, an associate professor in media at the University of NSW, and Fan Yang, a research fellow from the University of Melbourne, have been researching political and media literacy among Chinese and South Asian communities in Australia since 2023.
This coincided with last year’s Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum, when
“It was in the aftermath of the referendum, or the week before the outcome was announced, that the Australian public, media, the political elite, AEC (the Australian Electoral Commission) realised the extent of the mis- and disinformation that was out there, and was being targeted at migrant communities in particular,” Khorana told SBS News.
“I think people were a little taken by surprise, and what is happening now is a response to that.”
Is it mis- or disinformation?
The AEC defines misinformation as false information that is spread due to ignorance, or by error or mistake, without the intent to deceive.
Disinformation, on the other hand, is knowingly false information that is designed to deliberately mislead and influence public opinion or obscure the truth.
Khorana said her and Yang’s research found mis- and disinformation which targets migrant communities takes place on platforms where there is limited oversight and uses languages other than English.
She cites research out of the United States relating to last year’s presidential election, which showed migrants were disproportionately targeted by misinformation.
“Whether that’s going to unfold in Australia now in this current election campaign … we are going to find out.”
Where potentially misleading content spreads
Yang also co-leads a research project called RECapture, which has been collecting and monitoring public posts across Chinese-language social media platforms since 2019.
This started with WeChat, an established app, and last year extended to Xiaohongshu — or RedNote in English.
A 2023 report by the Lowy Institute showed over half of Chinese Australians aged 18 to 44 used WeChat daily, compared with 34 per cent of those aged 45 and over.
“What we have observed is there are different types of disinformation narratives on both platforms, and they are either commercially driven or politically driven — or they might have a blend of both,” Yang said.
She said immigration policies, including those relating to foreign investment, are often a “specific focus”.
While these narratives have been ongoing, Yang said the election has seen them “hyped up and amplified”.
“There are a lot of things going on on social media platforms, and we do have a number of research assistants working with us to monitor political discussions,” Yang said.
This includes political candidates in electorates with a significant population of Chinese Australians “mobilising” their campaigns across platforms including WeChat and RedNote.
Yang said some Chinese language media outlets appear to translate English news or official news sources into Chinese and “further editorialise the content in order to get clicks”.
The team has also collected material from influencers or content producers.
Perhaps the most “problematic and misleading” source is material that Yang claims appears to be produced by immigration and education agencies based in Australia or overseas.
“Immigration and education agencies tend to exploit the interest of such topics [immigration and foreign investment], and they dramatise and elevate attention of certain policies, and then they re-appropriate the language and manipulate the probability of the event in order to get people’s attention,” she said.
“When they successfully get people’s attention by their misleading post … they tend to monetise their attention and redirect users’ attention to a private chat.”
Trust in media, and the role of community
Migrant communities are also susceptible to misleading content because they are not sure who to trust.
“There are knowledge gaps about Australia’s political economy, of Australia’s legacy media, which information sources are trustworthy, and a lack of understanding of, and lack of trust in, who to rely on,” Khorana said.
“Hence there is a greater reliance on sources that are coming through these platforms — a lot of which are not verified sources.”
Khorana and Yang’s research found younger women were usually more politically and media savvy, working to debunk misleading information for their friends and family. Most of them said this was “emotionally laborious” but important work.
“While those community interventions are important, we shouldn’t be putting the burden on individual members of the community who are not resourced in any way to do that work,” Khorana said.
A lack of oversight
Khorana said mis- and disinformation can spread on platforms where there is no oversight from government nor regulatory bodies “that can understand what is being said and how it’s being shared”.
“The AEC works closely with some social media companies … but the AEC is not able to be on platforms like RedNote,” she said.
However, Khorana said work is taking place to anticipate knowledge gaps before misleading information spreads, such as translating electoral information into various languages, and building relationships with community groups and diasporic media outlets.
AEC spokesperson Evan Ekin-Smyth said civic education workshops within multicultural communities had been a focus.
Last federal election, in 2019, the AEC collaborated with some major WeChat channels to publish Chinese translations of its official materials. In February, it met with the platform to develop a referral pathway over election misinformation.
But Ekin-Smyth said the rapidly changing landscape is challenging to navigate.
“This is not just in-language channels, this is all channels. The proliferation of social media channels has been significant, particularly over the last few years,” he said.
“There is a limit to the amount of places that we can go and the amount of money we can spend on advertising and the sort of presence that we can maintain on different channels.”
In a separate statement, the AEC said it was able to investigate content on platforms such as WeChat or Rednote if it is referred to them.
An AEC spokesperson said: “The AEC has already received a number of referrals from Australian Rednote users about electoral content for the upcoming federal election.”
“The AEC would welcome engagement with Rednote representatives as part of our efforts towards ensuring political candidates and other relevant entities are running their campaigns according to Australian laws.”
But the spokesperson noted the Electoral Act does not regulate truth in electoral communications.
“The AEC only has very limited powers in relation to the regulation of misleading electoral communications, where an elector is misled in relation to the casting of a vote.”
‘We’re under-prepared’
Yang said disinformation has long been an issue for Chinese language social media services, and most of this material is identified by either platform algorithms or user reports.
She said misleading content can also circulate on other platforms.
She argued the issue comes down to how Australia defines mis- and disinformation more broadly.
“Disinformation and misinformation online, circulated around non-English speaking communities, or circulated within closed, private channels, has long been overlooked by Australian regulatory bodies and also national media outlets,” she said.
The federal government due to opposition in the Senate.
The scrapped legislation would have given the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) power to monitor digital platforms and require it to keep records about misinformation and disinformation on their networks.
“We’re under-prepared to address or intervene disinformation and misinformation being circulated within either Chinese English-speaking communities or non-English speaking communities,” Yang said.
How to spot mis- and disinformation
Khorana encouraged all voters, particularly those who are not familiar with Australian media, to check the source and its background.
She said it’s also important to rely on informed opinion, or expertise — not just what is popping up on your social media feed.
“Think about the expertise of that person — even if they’re just making a Facebook reel or doing an Instagram post.”
The AEC is urging all voters to stop and think about the information they see online.
“I would recommend that people check multiple sources of information, because that’s the best thing that somebody can do to protect themselves,” Khorana said.
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