Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the federal Liberal party have been the target of criticism on Chinese social media accounts, including some linked to the Chinese government.
University of Canberra senior research fellow Michael Jensen and Titus Chen, an Associate Professor at Taiwan's National Sun Yat-sen University analysed 47 of the most influential WeChat accounts in mainland China, filtering out articles that had content regarding Australia.
They then ran a series of algorithms to analyse the content in the articles.
Twenty-nine accounts were directly linked to a government agency, according to their findings.
“The finding was that there was an overwhelming negative reaction to the Liberal government,” Dr Jensen told SBS News.
“They were particularly critical of (former prime minister Malcolm) Turnbull but they saw no change in the Liberal party under the leadership of Scott Morrison.
“And so there are a lot of stories criticising his leadership, his politics and suggesting that he’s no different than his predecessor.”
Prime Minister Scott Morrison poses for photos with the public at the Chinese New Year Grand Opening Ceremony in Box Hill, Melbourne, Saturday, February 2, 2019 Source: AAP
One post under the title "Cosying up to China? This trouble-making country did a huge about-face" attacks the decision by Mr Morrison to open a WeChat account to speak to Chinese voters ahead of the election, contrasting it to an Australian media article suggesting WeChat could be used by the Chinese government to interfere in the election.
"There is a country whose head has been kicked hard by kangaroos, and now seeks to befriend us," it says.
The post reads "Cosying up to China? This trouble-making country did a huge about-face." Source: Supplied
Australia’s foreign interference laws were among the subjects of negative commentary as well as the banning of Chinese technology giant Huawei from the rollout of Australia’s 5G network.
“That was interesting because whereas the criticism of (Prime Minister) Scott Morrison and Liberal party more generally was mostly on non-government accounts, the criticism of the five eyes (intelligence sharing alliance) and banning of Huwaei was something you find in the government accounts more generally and they were more critical of that,” Dr Jensen said.
Michael Jensen, Senior Research Fellow Source: AAP
However Dr Jensen, who is studying potential interference in Australia’s general election, said it was unclear whether this was evidence of foreign interference.
“I don’t think that those sorts of statements (critical posts) will really travel that far at the Australian political communication system,” he said.
The opposition has asked the prime minister to rule out any Liberal Party involvement in fake posts and doctored accounts on Chinese social media platform WeChat.
The accounts were found to be spreading misinformation about Labor's federal election campaign, targeting Labor policy on issues such as Safe Schools, taxes, asylum seekers and the economy.
Dr Jensen presented some of his preliminary findings at the Safeguarding Australia Summit in Canberra on Thursday.
