Australia To Formally Accept China's Extra-Territorial Control of Australian Social Media (🤑)
The Inquiry "Foreign Interference Through Social Media" is in process. After nothing happens, it will be the de-facto stamp of approval for CCP control of our Social Media.
This is a link to the Simon JianDan submission.
Submissions to the Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media have now closed.
How much of Australian social media should the Chinese dictatorship control ?
At the last election, all major political parties, supported the status quo - which we (very) crudely estimate at 10 % CCP control. This is based on an educated guess of 80 % of Chinese Australians using WeChat and Weibo for news and information (4% of Australia’s population), and Tiktok accounting for 6 % of population coverage.1
Are you ok with 90 % free speech, 10 % CCP control ? (and growing)
Instead of a show of unity from all nominally democratic parties and independents, Australia was successfully divided into those who submit to China’s censorship and public opinion guidance, and those who did not.
Unaffected or CCP supported politicians happily took advantage of the CCP’s media assistance in the 2022 Federal election.
We are already seeing a change in behaviour and tone from the remaining or aspiring Liberal MP’s.
A Victory for the CCP. A Defeat for Australia.
China’s Extra-Territorial Control Of Australian Social Media Breaks Into Two Categories:
1 CCP Directly Controlled Social Media in Australia:
Wechat
Weibo
Bilibili (video)
Tik Tok
WeChat doesn’t like Scott Morrison and TikTok doesn’t like Drew Pavlou. Maybe Drew should switch to WeChat and Scott to TikTok and we’ll see what happens….
The above media apps are directly subject to CCP censorship2 and CCP directed public opinion 舆论引导 / public feeling guidance舆情引导.3 They limit opinions critical of the CCP and detrimental to it's goals in Australia.
They highlight information supporting politicians they support in Australia and views they want people to hold.
They minimise or suppress information or views that run counter to their narrative and detrimental to their political goals in Australia.
Directly controlled Chinese social media apps blatantly oppose the Coalition and support Labor. They ban Democratic Alliance Party (formed in response to Chinese interference in Australian politics and affairs) but promote Australian Citizens Party, who espouse whatever China wants, even and especially policies that are blatantly against Australia’s best interests.
2 CCP Influenced Social Media in Australia:
Linked in
Youtube
Meta assets (Facebook / Instagram)
Twitter
Reddit
Social Media the dictatorship does not control, is a battleground (public opinion struggle) (舆论斗争 / yú lùn dòu zhēng)4 that they are winning. They win by:
Intimidating moderators into moderating according to CCP censorship requirements: The stand out example of this is Linked-in who censored users outside China in order to protect access to the China market.5
Flooding the media with messaging they control, through state media, subsidised and directed lifestyle6 7influencers who may be 90 % non-political, and foreign faces8 that appear to be independent but are actually groomed and promoted by Chinese media agencies.
Downvoting and spurious complaints making it harder to view the heroes fighting the information war, by making their contributions harder to find or demonetized, damaging their business model. It’s hard to fight for democracy if you can’t find the money for lunch.
Targeted harassment campaigns9 of repetitive insulting and abusive messaging to wear down the victim and act as a warning to others who might agree to them. The messages can be generated faster than they can be deleted where moderators act to moderate. This is reinforced by detailed defamatory “news articles” circulated in Chinese controlled media like WeChat that cannot be rebutted or challenged by legal means.
What Then, Is To Be Done?
Generic strategies covering all social media the same way may not be possible. We may need to “discriminate” between CCP directly controlled social media, and other social media.
CCP Directly Controlled Social Media:
Option 1.
Outright banning of CCP Directly Controlled Social Media
Option 2.
Australian government mandated intervention to facilitate the spreading of non-CCP narratives and defending ourselves through reasoned argument - defending our currently denied “dialogue rights” (话语权) 10 in our own country.
Option 3.
Accept the status quo. Do nothing.
Let's Continue To (tacitly) Support China's Extra-Territorial Control of Chinese owned Social Media in Australia.
CCP Influenced (Non Chinese) Australian Social Media:
Option 1.
Outright ban China origin media content
Option 2.
Australian Government direct intervention, monitoring Chinese origin media, gathering data, making recommendations to the social media company and reporting to the relevant government agency. The aim is to attempt to allow normal Chinese participation while frustrating CCP influence attempts.11
Option 3:
Accept the status quo. Do nothing.
Let's Continue To (tacitly) Support China's Extra-Territorial Influence of non-Chinese owned Social Media in Australia.
Now is the time to lobby the members of the Senate Committee, and if you are in a position to do so, make a submission.
Submissions to the Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media have now closed.
This is the link to all the submissions:
This is a link to the Simon JianDan submission.
If Chinese Australians are 5 % of the population and we assume 80 % rely on Chinese Controlled Social Media QED 4% of the population are subject to Chinese censorship and public opinion guidance efforts. 100 % of the Australian Chinese I know rely on Chinese Social Media. 6% of 18-65 year olds say Tiktok is their favourite social media platform, subject to the same pernicious controls as the Chinese language social media apps.
Tik Tok blatantly censors content, in Australia, that does not support the Chinese dictatorships propaganda.
如何理解新闻舆论工作各个方面、各个环节都要坚持正确舆论导向？ Everything, even advertisements, must be guided by the party. Not just news.
Linked in 2014 (Guardian). and Linked in (The Australian) Note that they may have walked back from their previous position in recent years, as awareness of these issues grows.
借嘴说话 borrow mouths to speak - an official CCP strategy to get foreigners to create social media to shill for China.
Smart Asian Women are the new targets of CCP global online repression (ASPI 3 June 2022)
话语权 （discourse rights ) is a concept of a right to speak or a right to be heard. When used by Chinese authorities it connotes passively digesting and accepting the CCP narrative about China or world events.
This could be generalised to include other actors as well, eg Russia, Iran, and many small countries that fly under the radar, eg Cambodia.