the example of an operative who “typed in deliberately broken English and was so convincing,
she was able to influence the man’s behaviour” (Burgess, 2019). In a military capacity,
Australia has consolidated its cyber and information operations under the Information Warfare
Division, formed in 2017 within the Department of Defence (Australian Government, 2020).
Political Parties
The 2016 federal election was dubbed the “Facebook election,” as political parties turned to
social media to assist with campaigning (Wordsworth, 2016). Since then, social media have
remained central to political parties’ campaign strategies. Freedom House (2019) noted that
the 2019 election featured a “proliferation of online disinformation spread by domestic political
parties”, and Facebook removed two instances of ‘coordinated inauthentic behaviour’ during
the election (Murphy, 2019).
Table 1: Organizational Form and Prevalence of Social Media Manipulation in Australia
Initial
Government Politicians Private Contractors Civil
Society Citizens &
Report
Agencies
& Parties
Organizations Influencers
2016
Australian
Signals
Directorate
Labor Party,
X
Liberal
Party, United
Australia
Party, Bill
Shorten,
Scott
Morrison,
Tony Abbott
Source: Authors’ evaluations based on data collected. Blank spaces indicate no evidence was found.
Strategies, Tools, and Techniques
Disinformation
The 2019 federal election was “littered with false and exaggerated claims” which were
propagated by fringe groups, anonymous pages, and major political parties (Knaus, 2019). The
most contentious case of disinformation during the election was the rumour that the Labor
Party would implement a ‘death tax’ (a 40% tax on inheritance). The Guardian reported that
the rumour “appears to have begun on unsourced Facebook pages, spread to other users via
direct messages and paid ads, before finally being amplified by Coalition politicians” (Knaus,
2019). The Labor Party notified Facebook of the rapid circulation of the false claim, including
allegations that there was ‘orchestrated message forwarding’ on Facebook messenger (Murphy
et al., 2019). Facebook was criticised for failing to remove the ‘death tax’ content, despite it
being deemed false by the platform’s third-party fact checkers (Murphy, 2019).
Figure 1: Labor’s ‘Death Tax’ disinformation on Facebook (Murphy, 2019)
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