Liu’s self-imposed exile remains in place, even though she credited the platform with her success in 2019, and that of Julia Banks in 2016. The Coalition’s star performer on WeChat, Gladys Liu, was at the vanguard of the boycott, ditching her personal account “until the platform explains itself”. Senator James Patterson thundered: “We cannot allow a foreign authoritarian government to interfere in our democracy and set the terms of public debate in Australia.” He called on Australian politicians from all sides to boycott the platform. Australians learnt that the Prime Minister had a WeChat account, and it had been hijacked by parties who seemed unaware they’d bought his account. It seems an age ago, although in reality only a few months back, that the greatest threat to Australia’s security was a Chinese-language app called WeChat. ![]() ![]() Threats to Australia’s national security have been coming from all directions in this campaign – Solomon Islands’ Prime Minister Manneseh Sogavare’s secretive security deal with China, Deputy Labor leader Richard Marles caught on tape calling China’s engagement with the Pacific a “good thing”, and most recently the Chinese surveillance ship Haixingwang sailing off the Australian coast in international waters, deemed by Australia’s Defence Minister to be “an aggressive act”. ![]() The murky use of Chinese-owned social media in our elections might require federal truth in political advertising laws – but to safeguard against the disinformation of our own politicians rather than foreign influencers, writes Graeme Smith.
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