Electoral Commissioner expressed his confidence that the attack did not affect the electoral integrity of the country. Online Extremism An Australian man murdered fifty-one people in an attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, on 15 March 2019. The attack was livestreamed on Facebook, and the incident raised awareness of the online activities of extreme right-wing groups in Australia. Notably, some of these groups were involved in political campaigning during the federal election (Smee, 2019a). Alt-right Facebook groups campaigned in favour of the United Australia Party, disseminating “anti-Muslim messages, climate denial and conspiracy theories” that encouraged people to support anyone but Labor or the Greens (Gladstone, 2019). In the context of coronavirus, extremist groups have been peddling conspiracy theories on white supremacist forums to recruit new members. ABC News reported that the use of anti-China rhetoric had increased online since the start of the pandemic (Christodoulou, 2020). References Australian Government. (2020). Information Warfare Division: Joint Capabilities Group: Department of Defence. https://www.defence.gov.au/jcg/iwd.asp Barbaschow, A. (2020). Countering foreign interference and social media misinformation in Australia. ZDNet. https://www.zdnet.com/article/countering-foreign-interference-andsocial-media-misinformation-in-australia/ Burgess, M. (2019, March 27). Director-General ASD speech to the Lowy Institute | ASD Australian Signals Directorate. https://www.asd.gov.au/publications/speech-lowyinstitute-speech Butler, J. (2020, July 1). How to win an Australian election with one weapon: Memes. The New Daily. https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2020/07/02/how-to-win-an-australianelection-with-one-weapon-memes/ Cannane, S., Hui, E., & Investigations, A. B. C. (2019, May 9). ‘Head has been kicked hard by kangaroos’: Chinese media mocks Australia and PM [Text]. ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-09/pm-targeted-by-chinese-communist-partyrelated-wechat-accounts/11092238 Cave, D. (2020, January 8). How Rupert Murdoch Is Influencing Australia’s Bushfire Debate. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/world/australia/firesmurdoch-disinformation.html Christodoulou, M. (2020, June 11). Extreme right-wing groups ‘exploiting’ COVID-19, Australian spy agency warns. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-12/asio-briefingwarns-far-right-is-exploiting-coronavirus/12344472 Elvin, L. (2019, May 8). Labor calls on PM to rule out Liberal Party involvement in fake WeChat posts. SBS News. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/labor-calls-on-pm-to-rule-outliberal-party-involvement-in-fake-wechat-posts Esposito, B. (2018, March 26). Will Australia’s Meme Wars Be Fun? BuzzFeed. https://www.buzzfeed.com/bradesposito/will-there-ever-be-an-australian-meme-war Evershed, N. (2019, May 1). Lies, Trump enthusiasts and car parks: The Australian election campaign waged by Facebook ads | Australia news | The Guardian. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/datablog/2019/may/01/lies-trumpenthusiasts-and-car-parks-the-australian-election-campaign-waged-by-facebook-ads Facebook Newsroom. (2019, March 26). Removing Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior from Iran, Russia, Macedonia and Kosovo. Facebook Newsroom. https://about.fb.com/news/2019/03/cib-iran-russia-macedonia-kosovo/ 20