PM’s social media account hijacked

The move, first reported by The Daily Telegraph on Monday, has been blasted as “foreign interference” in an election year and a “blatant” act of political censorship.

The Prime Minister’s 76,000 followers on the hugely popular platform were notified earlier this month that his page had been renamed “Australian Chinese new life”, with his profile picture changed and the account description now reading, “(to) provide life information for overseas Chinese in Australia”.

Joint Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence and Security chair Senator James Paterson told the paper Beijing was seeking to “enforce censorship well beyond its borders and interfere in our democracy”.

“(The CCP are) targeting our Prime Minister by seeking to shut down his ability to communicate with the Chinese Australians by banning him from the most widely used channel of communication in that community,” he said.

“I am calling on all Australian politicians to voluntarily boycott WeChat. We cannot allow a foreign authoritarian government to interfere in our democracy and set the terms of public debate in Australia.”

WeChat, owned by technology company Tencent, is used by up to three million people in Australia and for many is their key link to family and friends in China.

But national security experts have long warned the popular messaging app is a national security risk due to its heavy control, surveillance and censorship by the Chinese Community Party.

Due to posting limits imposed on overseas users, many Australia-based accounts including the Prime Minister’s are registered in China rather than through the app’s international version.

Mr Morrison’s account was managed by a local agency, which posted various government announcements each week. According to The Daily Telegraph, the agency has been locked out of the account since July 2021 and has made several requests to regain access.

Anthony Albanese’s account has been unaffected, with the Labor leader continuing to post updates, including attacking the Prime Minister’s “lies” on foreign policy and rapid antigen tests.

Federal government minister Stuart Robert described the move as “shocking”.

Speaking to Nine’s Today on Monday, Mr Robert questioned why Mr Albanese’s account had been left alone.

“The government speaks through many channels to the 1.2 million (people in the) Chinese community,” Mr Robert.

“I think if it is an act of censorship, that is stunning and should be concerning to all of us. The Prime Minister’s asked to get his account back. We can make our judgments about the content of the account (prior to the takeover) … but I don’t think we want Chinese actors taking over social media pages.”

Mr Morrison has been censored by WeChat before.

In December 2020, the Prime Minister reached out directly to the Chinese people in the wake of the controversy over the doctored photo of an Australian soldier posted by a Chinese diplomat.

“The post of a false image of an Australian soldier does not diminish our respect for and appreciation of our Chinese Australian community or indeed our friendship with the people of China,” Mr Morrison wrote.

WeChat replaced the post with a message stating the content “involves the use of inciting, misleading, or contrary to objective facts, text, pictures, videos, etc., fabricate social hot spots, distort historical events, and confuse the public”.

A report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute think tank the same month warned WeChat was a key driver of the CCP’s influence in Australia, particularly through its influence over Chinese-language media.

“The PRC’s ability to censor and monitor WeChat is perhaps the single most effective and concerning factor in the CCP’s influence over Chinese-language media in Australia,” the report said.

The report warned that the app’s role in Australian elections, particularly in marginal seats with large Chinese-speaking populations such as Chisholm and Reid, was a growing concern due to the lack of adequate oversight or regulation, including measures to combat disinformation.

It called on the Australian government to hold WeChat to the same standards as US-based platforms like Facebook and Twitter. “If companies refuse to meet those standards, they shouldn’t be allowed to operate in Australia,” it said.

The Prime Minister’s office declined to comment.

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Originally published as WeChat turns Scott Morrison account into pro-China propaganda page