Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1697635564716.pdf (Australia)
31 October 2021 Committee Secretary Department of the Senate PO Box 6100 Canberra ACT 2600 Dear Secretary, By Email: foreigninterference.sen@aph.gov.au RE: Foreign Interference through Social Media The Australasian Cyber Law Institute (“ACLI”) appreciates the opportunity to provide a submission to the Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media (“Committee”).
ACLI is a community of legal and cyber professionals, educators, and students within the Australasian region with a shared interest in cyber law.

ACLI is a nonpartisan and non-profit organisation.

One part of ACLI’s mission is to promote a healthier relationship between technology and society by identifying public policy solutions that mitigate the harmful effects of digital technologies on liberal democracies throughout the Australasian region.
We aim to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges presented by digital technologies, including social media platforms, to truth, political discourse, democracy, and human rights, and to identify legal and policy solutions that solve these challenges while maximising the benefits of innovation.

ACLI’s recommendations are informed by input from industry experts, lawyers, and academics.
They are accompanied by a paper outlining supporting evidence, attached at Appendix A, which represents a non-exhaustive response to the following questions: • What is at stake?

• Who and what causes the problem?

• What guidance can Australia take from the international community?

Recommendations ACLI recommends that the Committee consider the following public policy measures and programs in response to the threat of foreign interference through social media: 1.
Greater transparency for social media users.

While ACLI believes that it should be up to Australian citizens to decide what is true and what is false, platforms should be required to assist users in this task through highlighting why content is being recommended and disclosing the source of such content, especially in the context of the political messaging.

The use of bots should be flagged (as required under the Californian B.O.T Act, discussed in Appendix A).

2.
2.

Greater transparency in political advertising.

Greater transparency should attend online advertising in the political sphere.

A transparent and publicly searchable database of individuals and organisations who have financed political advertisements is required.
This might be achieved through an expansion of the Australian Electoral Commission’s information about political parties, Transparency register, which currently ‘contains Suite 6/8 Bromham Place, Richmond Victoria 3121 Foreign Interference through Social MediaSubmission 41 candidates, Senate groups, political campaigners, associated entities, third parties and donors registered with or recognised by the AEC.’1 Further, a mandatory process requiring identity validation should be a prerequisite for those who wish to finance political advertisements.
3.

Greater access to algorithms for researchers.

Given that newsfeed and analogous algorithms are influential in determining the content seen online by Australian users and the potential divisiveness of that content (this issue is discussed in Appendix A), greater access to these algorithms should be provided to independent assessors and researchers.
This would enable a greater understanding of the nature and effect of social media algorithms, and how they might be optimised to ensure platforms operate consistently with the public interest by, for example, limiting the connection between the virality and divisiveness of content.

4.

Increased controls for social media users.

Platforms should give users greater control over their own newsfeeds and ‘filter bubbles’.
Users' data sharing settings should default to “off”, with the option of turning such settings on if the user desires a more personalised online experience.

5.

New rules for social media platforms – optimisation of newsfeed algorithms.

The Facebook Files demonstrate that social media giants can tweak their algorithms to increase or decrease users’ exposure to emotionally triggering and divisive content and do so in pursuit of market growth (this issue is discussed in Appendix A).
This means that the harmful effects of platforms on our public discourse are not an inevitable consequence of the platforms and are controllable by social media corporations.

Co-regulatory and standards-based approaches are required to guide platforms to better balance profit and public interest considerations when optimising algorithms that determine the content consumed by users.
Standards should be addressed at an international level to ensure consistency and ease of compliance for social media corporations.

6.

New rules for social media platforms – limits to the use of micro-targeted advertising.
The Cambridge Analytica scandal, discussed in Appendix A, demonstrates that through the use of Big (and sometimes improperly sourced) Data, users can be targeted based not only on inferences about their race, gender, religion, and political beliefs (among many other factors), but also based on potentially accurate inferences about their emotions, personality traits, mental state, and mental health.
While micro-targeting based on demographic and psychographic profiles can conceivably be used in the public interest, the Committee should consider where to draw the line regarding such techniques.

At the very least, people should know when they are being micro-targeted based on their personal information, particularly in the context of political communications (this issue is related to the recommendation regarding privacy law immediately below).
It is possible that anti-discrimination laws should be extended to capture targeting that is based on certain kinds of assumed traits.

The Committee should also consider whether rules should be introduced to limit, track and publicise the actors that use such techniques in a political context.

7.

Salience and meaningfulness of privacy-related warnings / working towards informed consent.
In Australia, organisations must have a privacy policy and take reasonable steps to 1 ‘Transparency Register’, Australian Electoral Commission (Web Page, 27 October 2017) <https://www.aec.gov.au/parties_and_representatives/financial_disclosure/transparency-register/>.

2 Foreign Interference through Social MediaSubmission 41 ensure an individual is aware that their data is being collected (cf.

Australian Privacy Principle 1 and Australian Privacy Principle 5).
However, users should be given more information about the third parties that will receive that information; certain potential use cases, especially in the context of targeted political communications, should be highlighted before the user provides consent to the collection.

8.

Education and digital literacy initiatives.


As a supplement to recommendations above, the Committee should consider public media literacy programs (such as those that are implemented in Canada – see Appendix A) to boost citizens’ awareness and discernment of misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation.

ACLI supports Submission 17 (dated 27 March 2020) by Responsible Technology Australia and Submission 19 (dated 3 April 2020) by the Allens Hub for Technology Law and Innovation, QUT, and SSIT.
Contributors and Special Thanks We wish to acknowledge the following ACLI members who contributed to this submission: Authored by Milan Gandhi, Matthew Keath, Elly Krambias, Thomas Jessup, Nicholas Dyson, and Angus Murray.

Reviewed by Greg Adamson and Carol Grimshaw.

Please do not hesitate to contact ACLI should you require any further information.
Yours sincerely, The Australasian Cyber Law Institute https://www.acli.org.au 3 Foreign Interference through Social MediaSubmission 41 Appendix A: Discussion and Evidence Base Table of Contents Recommendations .............................................................................................................................. 1 Contributors and Special Thanks ........................................................................................................ 3 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 4 Key concepts ................................................................................................................................... 5 What is at stake?
............................................................................................................................. 6 The problem ........................................................................................................................................ 7 Digital platforms .............................................................................................................................. 7 The pursuit of growth at the expense of public interest ................................................................ 7 The Facebook Files show that Facebook’s algorithm is shaping public policy for the worse ....... 9 Political warfare and the weaponisation of social media by malicious actors ............................. 10 Russian states supported trolls .................................................................................................... 11 State supported trolling by China ................................................................................................ 12 Libya and state-sponsored MDH ................................................................................................. 13 AI deepfakes .................................................................................................................................. 13 Risks to elections and the free formation of political beliefs ....................................................... 15 The Cambridge Analytica scandal – not just about privacy ........................................................ 15 International policy responses .......................................................................................................... 16 Introduction In the aftermath of the Wall Street Journal’s Facebook Files, underpinned by corporate documents sourced from within the social media giant itself by Frances Haugen, ACLI was compelled to update its draft submission to the Committee.
The Facebook Files are important in that they prove that Facebook’s products are harmful to democracy, that Facebook is acutely aware of this, and that Facebook has placed profit and public relations ahead of public interest:2 ‘Internal Facebook documents, part of an array of company communications reviewed by the Journal for its Facebook Files series, show that people inside the company have long discussed a different, more systematic approach to restrict features that disproportionately amplify incendiary and divisive posts.
The company rejected those efforts because they would impede the platform’s usage and growth.’3 The problem, and the case for robust regulatory intervention, has never been clearer.

2 Jeff Horwitz and Justin Scheck, ‘The Facebook Files: Facebook Increasingly Suppresses Political Movements It Deems Dangerous’, The Wall Street Journal (online, 22 October 2021) <https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-suppresses-political-movements-patriot-party-11634937358>.

3 Ibid.
3 Ibid.

4 Foreign Interference through Social MediaSubmission 41 The most significant questions now relate to how public policy should be designed and implemented to mediate a healthier relationship between social media platforms, including but not limited to Facebook, and Australia’s democracy.

Not whether.

The Committee will be acutely aware that these are not easy questions to answer.
Any proposal to bluntly regulate public discourse (online or otherwise), even when it has been distorted by profit- driven algorithms and clandestine foreign propagandists, should be approached with extreme caution.

In seeking to safeguard democracy, the state should not inadvertently damage it further.

ACLI’s submission is a non-exhaustive response to the following questions: • What is at stake?

• Who and what causes the problem?

• What guidance can Australia take from the international community?
• What public policy solutions might assist in solving the problem (addressed above on pages 1 to 3 of ACLI’s submission)?
Key concepts The Department of Home Affairs states that foreign interference is a type of conduct that goes beyond legitimate forms of influence and which is: • • • carried out by, or on behalf of, a foreign actor; coercive, corrupting, deceptive, or clandestine; and contrary to Australia’s sovereignty, values, and national interests.4 Section 92.2 of the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth) prohibits certain types of intentional foreign interference.
ACLI notes, however, that coercive conduct need not be intentionally contrary to Australia’s interests to interfere with and damage them.
Arguably, therefore, if a social media giant, domiciled across Ireland and the Cayman Islands, changes its newsfeed algorithm to increase user engagement and the consequences, albeit unintentional, include boosting the divisive political content consumed by 16 million Australians and shifting political parties’ policy positions towards the fringes, foreign interference has occurred.
Scholars may debate whether this scenario is truly interference, merely influence, or something else entirely; however, there is no question that it has consequences for Australia’s sovereignty, values, and national interests.
The reader may recognise that this is not a farfetched hypothetical, but one chosen to mirror revelations contained in the Facebook Files in relation to European political parties.5 Disinformation is a concept that overlaps with foreign interference and refers to false information that is deliberately and often covertly spread to distort public opinion and discourse.
If, hypothetically speaking, a foreign actor (state or nonstate) was to clandestinely create fake personalities on social media and use these to spread false information aimed at deterring Australians from taking the COVID-19 vaccines, this could be both foreign interference and disinformation.
If the same false information emanated from domestic sources, it would still be an example of 4 Department of Home Affairs, Countering foreign interference (webpage) <https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about-us/our-portfolios/national-security/countering-foreign- interference>.

5 Keach Hagey and Jeff Horwitz, ‘The Facebook Files: Facebook Tried to Make Its Platform a Healthier Place.
It Got Angrier Instead.’, The Wall Street Journal (online, 15 September 2021) <https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-algorithm-change-zuckerberg-11631654215?mod=article_inline>.

5 Foreign Interference through Social MediaSubmission 41 disinformation but not of foreign interference.

It is important to note that the most effective public policy solution to address the issue may be one that does not discriminate between whether the disinformation emanated from abroad or a domestic source.
The term misinformation, as distinct from disinformation, is increasingly used in the literature to refer to false information that is spread regardless of intent to mislead.

Consider, for example, a conspiracy theorist that spreads false information about the COVID-19 vaccines with a bona fide belief in its truthfulness.

Malinformation is the exclusion of critical facts to produce a misleading conclusion or false belief.
ACLI’s focus throughout this submission is on all of the abovementioned concepts and, to quote the Committee’s Terms of Reference, ‘use of social media for purposes that undermine Australia’s democracy and values, including the spread of misinformation’.

However, as ACLI discusses under the subheading ‘Digital Platforms’ below, it is not only the use of social media that undermines Australia’s democracy and values; it is also the business and design of social media that does so.
While ACLI does not claim that social media giants such as Facebook necessarily intend to harm Australia’s democracy and values, their business model and technology design choices have this effect.

They should, therefore, attract the same scrutiny as the users of their products even if their actions are inspired by profit rather than malice.

What is at stake?

Public discourse is foundational to democracy.


The ability to disseminate and challenge ideas in a public space offers opportunities for reflection and understanding.

It enables individuals to become informed and develop their own unique perspectives.

These perspectives underpin citizens’ votes.

In the information age, much of this discourse takes place online, particularly on social media.

Individuals’ ability to freely develop their own identity is being eroded.
It is theorised that the development of individual personalities requires a society which fosters and encourages autonomy in the citizen.6 It is only through autonomy that self-determination can develop.

Essential to the development of autonomy is the marketplace of ideas, namely, the ability to hear others and engage in discussions.

The marketplace of ideas enables individuals to form and cultivate their own values and preferences.
It is only effective when an individual can freely assess what is happening around them and come to their own conclusions accordingly.7 When individuals lack the privacy to engage in the construction of their own identity, their beliefs and desires are more likely to track with mainstream expectations.
Only when privacy is protected can individuality and autonomy exist.8 The use of personal information has allowed a number of technology companies to learn how their design choices can be optimised to manipulate human behaviour for commercial ends.9 The pervasiveness of technologies in our daily lives has meant that the human brain is increasingly subject to manipulation through neurobiology tactics which some have described as the hijacking of the human brain (this problem is revisited below under the subheadings 6 Jacquelyn Burkell and Priscilla Regan ‘Voting public Leveraging personal information to construct voter preference’ In Normann Witzleb, Moira Paterson, Janice Richardson (eds) Big Data, Political Campaigning and the Law Democracy and Privacy in the Age of Micro-Targeting (Routledge, 2020) 47, 70.
7 Ibid 71.

8 Ibid 70.

9 Janice Richardson, Normann Witzleb, Moira Paterson ‘Political micro-targeting in an era of Big Data analytics’ In Normann Witzleb, Moira Paterson, Janice Richardson (eds) Big Data, Political Campaigning and the Law Democracy and Privacy in the Age of Micro-Targeting (Routledge, 2020) 1, 11.
6 Foreign Interference through Social MediaSubmission 41 ‘The pursuit of growth at the expense of public interest’ and ‘AI deepfakes’ respectively).10 The capacity for technology to elicit emotional reactions and ‘nudge’ (i.e.
influence) users’ behaviour is a well-established and increasingly sophisticated element of the ‘surveillance capitalism’ business model.11 Further, social media platforms algorithmically tailor the information users receive in their newsfeeds based on a data-driven determination of individual (and sometimes private) interests, which places each user in their own unique filter bubble, an isolation that is antithetical to the picture of a ‘marketplace of ideas’ painted above.
12 Not only is information known about us, but that information may be used against us.
As discussed under the subheading ‘The Cambridge Analytica scandal – not just about privacy’ below, an increasing use of messaging that is devised to target populations that share distinct and personal characteristics, minimises the opportunity for productive public discourse.13 The subjugation of users to profiling based on psychographic and demographic traits can threaten an individual’s ability to realise an undistorted identity.14 Due to the narrowing of choices through the filter bubble, individuals’ self-determination is threatened as algorithms are working to shape who we are before we can decide this for ourselves.
The pervasive and underhanded nature of this kind of influence makes it distinct from other forms of political advertising.

Because of the erosion of privacy, people are no longer able to process information independently without an invisible hand guiding their thoughts.15 The ability to surreptitiously influence individuals’ thoughts and behaviours creates a significant vulnerability for unwanted interference in Australia’s democracy.
The problem Digital platforms The pursuit of growth at the expense of public interest The dangers posed by digital platforms to society relate not just to their potential to know us, but also to influence human behaviour on a scale not seen in history.

The Facebook Files confirm that the use of digital platforms to conduct foreign interference represents one symptom of a broader challenge that is rooted within the commercial objectives of big technology companies.
Those objectives relate primarily to growth or, in other words, maximising the number of users and the time spent by those users on digital platforms to increase advertising revenue potential.

10 Brett Aho and Roberta Duffield , ‘Beyond surveillance capitalism: Privacy, regulation and Big Data in Europe and China’ (2020) 49(2) Economy and Society 187, 190.

11 Ibid.
11 Ibid.

12 Janice Richardson ‘Filter bubbles, democracy and conceptions of self A brief genealogy and a Spinozist perspective’ In Normann Witzleb, Moira Paterson, Janice Richardson (eds) Big Data, Political Campaigning and the Law Democracy and Privacy in the Age of Micro-Targeting (Routledge, 2020) 34, 43.
13 Janice Richardson, Normann Witzleb, Moira Paterson ‘Political micro-targeting in an era of Big Data analytics’ In Normann Witzleb, Moira Paterson, Janice Richardson (eds) Big Data, Political Campaigning and the Law Democracy and Privacy in the Age of Micro-Targeting (Routledge, 2020) 1, 11.
14 Jonathan Cinnamon, ‘Social Injustice in Surveillance Capitalism’ (2017) 15(5) Surveillance & Society 609, 610; Universal Declaration of Human Rights, GA Res 217A (III), UN GAOR, UN Doc A/810 (10 December 1948) Article 22; Article 29.
15 Jacquelyn Burkell and Priscilla Regan ‘Voting public Leveraging personal information to construct voter preference’ In Normann Witzleb, Moira Paterson, Janice Richardson (eds) Big Data, Political Campaigning and the Law Democracy and Privacy in the Age of Micro-Targeting (Routledge, 2020) 47, 71.

7 Foreign Interference through Social MediaSubmission 41 The digital platforms themselves are not, therefore, neutral.
They are intentionally designed to coax users to act in ways that profit big technology companies.

Prominent design ethicist and former Google employee, Tristan Harris, spoke to how big technology companies’ commercial objectives translate to the design of digital platforms when providing testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation as early as 2019: ‘[I]n an attention economy, there’s only so much attention and the advertising business model always wants more.
So, it becomes a race to the bottom of the brain stem.

Each time technology companies go lower into the brain stem, it takes a little more control of society.

It starts small.

First to get your attention, I add slot machine “pull to refresh” rewards which create little addictions.

I remove stopping cues for “infinite scroll” so your mind forgets when to do something else.

But then that’s not enough.


As attention gets more competitive, we have to crawl deeper down the brainstem to your identity and get you addicted to getting attention from other people.

By adding the number of followers and likes, technology hacks our social validation and now people are obsessed with the constant feedback they get from others.

This helped fuel a mental health crisis for teenagers.

And the next step of the attention economy is to compete on algorithms.
Instead of splitting the atom, it splits our nervous system by calculating the perfect thing that will keep us there longer– the perfect YouTube video to autoplay or news feed post to show next.

Now technology analyzes (sic) everything we’ve done to create an avatar, voodoo doll simulations of us.

With more than a billion hours watched daily, it takes control of what we believe, while discriminating against our civility, our shared truth, and our calm.
As this progression continues the asymmetry only grows until you get deep fakes which are checkmate on the limits of the human mind and the basis of our trust.’16 (emphasis added) Shoshana Zuboff, a professor emerita at Harvard Business School, supports Harris’s analysis, summarising the goals of big technology companies as follows: ‘[The aim] is not to impose behavioural norms, such as conformity and obedience, but rather to produce behaviour that reliably, definitively, and certainly leads to desired commercial results.’17 While we do not suggest that the ‘attention-harvesting’ business model is illegal, we do suggest that it may underpin several harms posed by digital platforms to Australian society including in relation to polarisation, truth decay, and, ultimately, foreign interference in Australia’s democracy.
For example, when automatically recommending content to users, digital platforms prefer and amplify divisive and controversial content, including dis- and misinformation, because such content is more effective at eliciting an emotional reaction, namely anger, and, therefore, at grabbing users’ attention.

In pursuit of growth and engagement every click is as good as any other, which incentivises indifference to truth content and the harmful implications of spreading certain kinds of dis- and misinformation.
An MIT 16 Testimony of Tristan Harris before the U.S. Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet as part of the hearing titled ‘Optimizing for Engagement: Understanding the Use of Persuasive Technology on Internet Platforms’ (25 June 2019) <https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/96E3A739-DC8D-45F1-87D7-EC70A368371D>.

17 Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (Profile Books, 2019) 201.
8 Foreign Interference through Social MediaSubmission 41 study found that, on Twitter, ‘falsehood diffuses significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth, in all categories of information, and in many cases by an order of magnitude’.18 Further, digital platforms lead to a phenomenon described as the ‘filter bubble’ whereby each users’ online experience is tailored to their individual preferences: ‘Many companies manipulate what you see according to your user profile: Google search, Yahoo News, even online newspapers like the New York Times.
This is a big deal.

The first listing in a Google search result gets a third of the clicks, and if you’re not on the first page, you might as well not exist.

The result is that the Internet you see is increasingly tailored to what your profile indicates your interests are.

This leads to a phenomenon that political activist Eli Pariser has called the “filter bubble”: an Internet optimized to your preferences, where you never have to encounter an opinion you don’t agree with.
You might think that’s not too bad, but on a large scale it’s harmful.’19 While this system may yield positive outcomes for consumers in the context of online shopping and the relevance of online advertisements, its extension to every element of our online experience threatens to distort political discourse and exacerbate polarisation by creating a society ‘where everybody only reads things that reinforce their existing opinions, where we never have spontaneous encounters that enliven, confound, confront, and teach us.’20 While we accept that the Committee may be limited by its terms of reference in grappling with these broader issues, we hypothesise that merely targeting the symptoms of the ‘attention-harvesting’ business model may prove less effective than strategic and holistic policies that aim to mediate a healthier relationship between digital platforms and Australian society.
The Facebook Files show that Facebook’s algorithm is shaping public policy for the worse In this context, one of the most extraordinary revelations in the Facebook Files, which goes squarely to the question of foreign interference in Australia’s democracy, is that Facebook’s algorithm inadvertently shapes political parties’ policy positions.
The Wall Street Journal reports that in 2018 Facebook made changes to its newsfeed algorithm to boost “meaningful social interactions”; in reality, the updated algorithm drove users towards more divisive content and this, in turn, influenced the behaviour of publishers and political parties: ‘[Facebook’s] researchers discovered that publishers and political parties were reorienting their posts toward outrage and sensationalism.
That tactic produced high levels of comments and reactions that translated into success on Facebook… Some political parties in Europe told Facebook the algorithm had made them shift their policy positions so they resonated more on the platform, according to the documents.

“Many parties, including those that have shifted to the negative, worry about the long term effects on democracy,” read one internal Facebook report, which didn’t name specific parties.
18 Peter Dizikes, ‘Study: On Twitter, false news travels faster than true stories’, MIT News (online, 8 March 2018) <https://news.mit.edu/2018/study-twitter-false-news-travels-faster-true-stories-0308>.

19 Bruce Schneier, Data and Goliath (W.W Norton & Company, 2016) 135.

20 Ibid.
9 Foreign Interference through Social MediaSubmission 41 Facebook employees also discussed the company’s other, less publicized motive for making the change: Users had begun to interact less with the platform, a worrisome trend, the documents show.’21 (emphasis added) This evidence suggests that when the Committee considers the agents of foreign interference —a list likely to include perpetrators of social media influence operations such as certain foreign governments and nonstate extremist groups (discussed below)— it must include the social media giants.
Digital platforms are not simply the battlefield; they are a side unto themselves, albeit one driven by profit as opposed to malevolence.

Political warfare and the weaponisation of social media by malicious actors The Greek poet Aeschylus proclaimed that ‘truth is the first casualty of war’.
Military leaders have long understood that controlling the flow of and manipulating information is an essential supplement and, in some cases, effective alternative to kinetic warfare.22 Overlapping phenomena such as disinformation, misinformation, and foreign interference are, of course, as old as warfare itself; however, in the information age, tactics are available to any individual with a computer and an internet connection, and the consequences are disproportionately far-reaching.23 Although one can broadly categorise perpetrators as state-sponsored and non-state-sponsored, when it comes to the tactics deployed and the consequences, there is no bright line delineating the two.
Having addressed the role of social media giants, their business model and technological design choices, ACLI will now turn its focus to malicious actors, both state and non-state, who seek to weaponise social media.

Within this subsection, misinformation, disinformation and hate speech are collectively referred to as “MDH”.24 A series of case studies are set out below – they do not represent a complete picture of every recorded instance of MDH.
The most successful MDH ‘information operations’ campaigns are likely still unknown.25 ACLI notes that although Russia and China are singled out below, particularly as the remit of the Committee is to consider foreign interference in Australia’s democracy, MDH is not limited by political or national boundaries, and Russia and China are by no means the only nations that have committed interferences involving MDH or “political warfare”.
Thomas Rid, author of Active Measures, observes in the introduction to his seminal book on disinformation and political warfare that there have been four waves of MDH throughout modern history, one of which was led by American intelligence agencies: 21 Keach Hagey and Jeff Horwitz, ‘The Facebook Files: Facebook Tried to Make Its Platform a Healthier Place.
It Got Angrier Instead.’, The Wall Street Journal (online, 15 September 2021) <https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-algorithm-change-zuckerberg-11631654215?mod=article_inline>.

22 R Scales, ‘Clausewitz and World War IV’ (2009) 21 (Suppl.

1).

Military Psychology S23 <https://doi.org/10.1080/08995600802554573>.
23 See Lewandowsky, et al, ‘Misinformation and Its Correction: Continued Influence and Successful Debiasing’ (2012) 13 (3) Psychological Science in the Public Interest 106 <https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1529100612451018>.

24 Sandrine Tiller,.

Pierrick Devidal and Delphine van Solinge, ‘The “fog of war” .

.

.

and information’ Humanitarian Law and Policy (Blog Post, 30 March 2021) <https://blogs.icrc.org/law-and- policy/2021/03/30/fog-of-war-and-information/>.
25 Vian Bakir, ‘Psychological Operations in Digital Political Campaigns: Assessing Cambridge Analytica's Psychographic Profiling and Targeting’ (2020) 5 Frontiers in Communication 10.3389/fcomm.2020.00067: 1-67 <https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2020.00067>.

10 Foreign Interference through Social MediaSubmission 41 ‘We live in an age of disinformation.
Private correspondence gets stolen and leaked to the press for malicious effect; political passions are inflamed online in order to drive wedges into existing cracks in liberal democracies; perpetrators sow doubt and deny malicious activity in public, while covertly ramping it up behind the scenes.

This modern era of disinformation began in the early 1920s, and the art and science of what the CIA once called “political warfare” grew and changed in four big waves, each a generation apart.
As the theory and practice of disinformation evolved, so did the terms that described what was going on.

The first big wave of disinformation started forming in the interwar years, during the Great Depression, in an era of journalism transformed by the radio, newly cutthroat and fast-faced.

Influence operations in the 1920s and early 1930s were innovative, conspiratorial, twisted – and nameless for now.
The forgeries of this period were often a weapon of the weak, and some targeted both the Soviet Union and the United States at the same time.

In the second wave, after World War II, disinformation became professionalized, with American intelligence agencies leading the way in aggressive and unscrupulous operations, compounded by the lingering violence of the global war.
The CIA now called its blend of covert truthful revelations, forgeries, and outright subversion of the adversary “political warfare”, a sprawling and ambitious term.

Political warfare was the deadlines in 1950s Berlin, just before the Wall went up.

The Eastern bloc, by contrast, then preferred the more honest and precise name “disinformation”.
Whatever the phrase, the goals were the same: to exacerbate existing tensions and contradictions within the adversary’s body politic, by leveraging facts, fakes, and ideally a disorienting mix of both.

The third wave arrived in the late 1970s when disinformation became well-resourced and fine- tuned, honed and managed, lifted to an operational science of global proportions, administered by a vast, well-oiled bureaucratic machine.
By then, the term “active measures” was widely used in the Soviet intelligence establishment and among its Eastern bloc satellite agencies.

The name stuck, and indeed was quite elegant, because it helped capture a larger conceptual and historical trend at play: after 1960, the measures were becoming progressively more active, with the East gaining an upper hand.

Then the Soviet Union collapsed, and any remaining sense of ideological superiority retreated.
The fourth wave of disinformation slowly built and crested in the mid-2010s, with disinformation reborn and reshaped by new technologies and internet culture.

The old art of slow-moving, highly skilled, close-range, labor-intensive (sic) psychological influence had turned high-tempo, low-skilled, remote, and disjointed.
Active measures were now not only more active than ever before but less measured – so much so that the term itself became contested and unsettled.’26 Russian states supported trolls Since the fall of communism, disinformation has been an important tactic of Russia’s military doctrine.27 CNN reports that Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA) created thousands of fake social 26 Thomas Rid, Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation & Political Warfare (Profile Books, 2021) 6 – 7.
27 Neil MacFarquharaug, ‘A Powerful Russian Weapon: The Spread of False Stories’ The New York Times (online, 28 August 2016) <https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/29/world/europe/russia-sweden- disinformation.html>.

11 Foreign Interference through Social MediaSubmission 41 media accounts to spread MDH about the 2016 US Presidential election.
At one stage in 2015, over 1000 people worked for the IRA as part of their Saint Petersburg office.28 The IRA utilised strategies such as hacking, paid social media advertisements, and the ‘management’ of social media profiles to promote content highlighting racial tensions and deep partisan divides on hotbed political issues such as immigration, abortion, and gun rights.
One example is the fake social media personality created by the IRA named ‘Jenna Abrams’,29 a young white American woman who had 70,000 twitter followers and profiles on Wordpress.com, Medium, Telegram and Gab.

‘Jenna’ used her accounts to precisely target and engage with a politically conservative online audience.30 In April 2016 ’she’ tweeted: ‘To those people, who hate the Confederate flag.

Did you know that the flag and the war wasn’t about slavery, it was all about money’.
This tweet caused considerable interest and engagement, with tweets debunking the tweet gaining even more popularity than the initial tweet.

Jenna’s message was endorsed and retweeted by legitimate ‘alt-right’ personalities including Mike Flynn Jr., Richard Spencer, and Mike Cernovich.

Another tweet read: ‘That’s too much!

#BlackLivesMatter is a disgusting hate movement’.


These ‘on-pitch right-wing partisan’ political tweets were mostly reactionary against liberal figures, political correctness, and left-wing activism.31 State supported trolling by China Closer to home, state supported Chinese trolling has the potential to spread MDH designed to influence Australia.32 Social media use in China is as vibrant as in Australia or any other western country.
While the censorship apparatus of the State imposes controls over the entire Chinese Internet, this ‘Great Firewall of China’ allows over 1,300 social media companies and websites, and millions of posts at times highly critical of the regime, while at the same time prohibiting certain types of collective action and organising.33 The State does not engage or argue with these dissenters, instead it focuses on fabricating social media posts with the goal of distracting the public or ‘changing the subject’ to lead public discourse away from controversial subjects.34 The posts involve promoting China, the revolutionary history of the Communist party, or other government symbols.
King et al describe a Chinese practice of using 28 Tim Lister; Jim Sciutto and Mary Ilyushina, ‘Putin's “chef”, the man behind the troll factory’ CNN (online, 28 August 2016) <https://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/17/politics/russian-oligarch-putin-chef-troll- factory/index.html>.

29 Yiping Xia, et al, ‘Disinformation, performed: self-presentation of a Russian IRA account on Twitter’ (2019) 22 (11) Information, Communication & Society 1646 <https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2019.1621921>.

30 Ibid 1660.
30 Ibid 1660.

31 Ibid 1656.

32 For a comparison between the Russian and Chinese trolls see David Beskow, Kathleen Carley, ‘Characterization and Comparison of Russian and Chinese Disinformation Campaigns’ in Shu K., Wang S., Lee D., Liu H. (eds), Disinformation, Misinformation, and Fake News in Social Media.

Lecture Notes in Social Networks (Springer, 2020) <https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42699-6_4>.
33 Gary King, Jennifer Pan and Margarete E. Roberts, ‘How the Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction, not Engaged Argument’ (2017) 111 (3) American Political Science Review 484, 484 <https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055417000144>.

34 Ibid 485.

12 Foreign Interference through Social MediaSubmission 41 ‘Internet commentators’ paid by the state to write and publish these types of posts.
It has been estimated that these commentators post approximately 450 million posts per year.35 This is not limited to Chinese social media.

Associate Professor Titus Chen points to an example of this trolling in an Australian context.

In 2020 a Chinese diplomat tweeted a doctored image of an Australian soldier holding a knife to an Afghan child’s throat created by artist Fu Yu.
Yu had created the image as a criticism over the Brereton war crimes inquiry.36 Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s demand for an apology encouraged a substantial amount of trolling on Twitter and other social media platforms.

Chen asserts that this was ‘no coincidence’ and the trolling was ‘mobilised’ by paid Chinese trolls.37 Libya and state-sponsored MDH Since Gadhafi’s fall, Libya remains a divided state.
Social media is used by both sides to facilitate ‘multiple realities’ that push the opposing groups broader goals.

Conducting so-called psychological operations (PSYOPS) to influence the population is always popular during times of instability, and the use of social media to spread MDH is an effective PSYOPS tactic in Libya.
MDH, and its proliferation on social media, is an important contributing factor to Libya’s status as an ‘ungovernable country, without a single central power and with an exacerbated social and political “division”’.

The involvement of state actors with interests in Libya adds complexity to a geopolitical situation that already confusing.
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, France, Russia, Qatar, Turkey, Italy, USA and others have interests in Libya, including in the opposing factions of General Khalifa Haftar and Fayez al-Serraj.
During recent peace talks that took place in a Tunis hotel between these factions, fake social media accounts, blogs, news websites, and various official and unofficial Facebook pages, spread rumours of corruption, circulated fake agreements, and threatened violence on the people conducting the negotiations.

AI deepfakes Deepfakes are fake videos of people so convincing that they cannot be distinguished from the real thing38.
Through AI techniques, deepfakes mimic a person's facial expressions, mannerisms, voice, and inflections.

39 In a political context, deepfakes have far-reaching consequences including the potential to influence individuals' voting preferences by undermining politicians’ political stances and attacking their credibility.

For example, a deepfake video of a political leader using illicit drugs before an election 35 Ibid 494.
36 Bang Xiao, ‘Chinese artist behind doctored image of Australian soldier says he's ready to make more’; ABC (online 1 December 2020) <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-01/doctored-image-of-australian-soldier- tweeted-by-chinese-diplomat/12938244>.

37 Iris Zhao, ‘Scott Morrison demanded an apology from China, but instead he became a target of internet trolls’ ABC (online 4 December 2020) <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-04/scott-morrison-became-a- target-of-chinese-internet-trolls/12947248>.
38 See generally Hannah Smith and Katherine Mansted, ‘Weaponised deep fakes.

National security and democracy (Policy Brief Report No.

28/2020, International Cyber Policy Centre, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 29 April 2020) <https://www.aspi.org.au/report/weaponised-deep-fakes>.
39 Andrew Ray, ‘Disinformation, Deepfakes And Democracies: The Need For Legislative Reform’ (2021) 44(3) UNSW Law Journal 983, 985 < https://www.unswlawjournal.unsw.edu.au/article/disinformation-deepfakes- and-democracies-the-need-for-legislative-reform/>.
13 Foreign Interference through Social MediaSubmission 41 may be difficult to discredit and catastrophic for the political leader’s reputation, especially if the political leader is known to advocate for policies that are ‘anti-drugs’.40 Perhaps more significantly, deepfakes, by their very existence, erode public trust in authenticity by casting doubt on authentic videos which, from a layperson’s point of view, may be indistinguishable from deepfakes.
Any public figure, or voter for that matter, can cry ‘fake news’ in response to real footage.41 The rise of this type of MDH, combined with the difficulty of distinguishing deepfakes from real footage, has the ability to ‘fundamentally undermine “truth” in elections with disastrous consequences’.42 Design ethicist Tristan Harris, introduced under the subheading ‘Digital Platforms’ above, believes that deepfakes are ‘checkmate on the limits of the human mind and the basis of our trust.’43 A deepfake created by Cris Ume has been viewed over 2,000,000 times on TikTok.
Ume used a Tom Cruise impersonator and two neural networks to create a fake video of Tom Cruise emerging from a pool and laughing maniacally.

Ume used over 6000 images and videos as source data to train the algorithm that created the deepfake video.44 Another example is the targeting of Belgian Prime Minister Sophie Wilmès by the environmental group Extinction Rebellion.

A deepfake posted online falsely depicted the Prime Minister giving a speech about the link between COVID-19 and climate change.
This has been described as the first adverse targeting of a politician by a deepfake that was neither educational nor satirical.

It has been reported that people were tricked into believing that the video was real.45 Closer to home in Australia, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) recently arrested and charged two people who created a deepfake video of a man purporting to be AFP commissioner Reece Kershaw.
In the video, the fake AFP Commissioner plots to overthrow the Australian government,46 saying that he has been approached by members of the armed forces who expressed an intention to ‘bear arms on the government’ and encouraging others to join.

Although this example is a clumsy attempt at a deepfake, Adjunct Professor Patrick Fair has observed that it demonstrates a ‘gap’ in laws in relation to deepfakes.47 The accused were only charged for impersonating a police officer,48 and importing a 40 Ibid 987.
41 Ibid 989.

42 Cristian Vaccari and Andrew Chadwick, ‘Deepfakes and Disinformation: Exploring the Impact of Synthetic Political Video on Deception, Uncertainty, and Trust in News’ (2020) 6(1) Social Media + Society 1, 6 <https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120903408>.
43 Optimizing for Engagement: Understanding the Use of Persuasive Technology on Internet Platforms: Hearings before the subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation and the Internet of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation 116th Cong (2019) (testimony of Tristan Harris) <https://assets- global.website-files.com/5f0e1294f002b15080e1f2ff/5f17b46b0b74e3b4314e0427_Testimony-Background- Tristan-Harris_CHT.pdf>.
44 Mark Corcoran and Matt Henry, ‘The Tom Cruise deepfake that set off “terror” in the heart of Washington DC‘ ABC (online, 24 June 2021) <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-24/tom-cruise-deepfake-chris-ume- security-washington-dc/100234772>.

45 Andrew Ray, ‘Disinformation, Deepfakes and Democracies: The Need For Legislative Reform’ (2021) 44(3) UNSW Law Journal 983, 986.
46 Australian Federal Police, ‘Woman charged with impersonating Commonwealth official as part of ongoing investigation’ (Media Release, 10 September 2021) <https://www.afp.gov.au/news-media/media- releases/woman-charged-impersonating-commonwealth-official-part-ongoing>.
47 Patrick Fair on “Misinformation and Dis-information”’ Cyber, Democracy, and Public Knowledge Podcast (Australasian Cyber Law Institute, 27 August 2021) <https://www.linkedin.com/posts/gandhimilan_the- human-rights-focussed-arm-of-the-australasian-activity-6837233646257229824-MjzV>.

48 Criminal Code 1995 (Cth) s 148.1(2).

14 Foreign Interference through Social MediaSubmission 41 fake AFP badge.
These laws only exist to protect the AFP against impersonation and would not extend to protecting regular citizens.49 Risks to elections and the free formation of political beliefs A recent report into the impact of social media by the Victorian Parliament found that MDH is a serious risk to the health of Victorian elections as democracy requires that people make informed decisions about who will best represent their interests.
Risks raised by the parliamentary report include misinformation about the electoral process aimed at misleading voters about how to fill out their ballot papers or where to vote.50 Although not foreign interference, a local and relatively unsophisticated example of malinformation (i.e.
the deliberate omission of facts to mislead) in a political context was evident during the 2018 Victorian state election when a social media post misrepresented a political candidate’s slip of tongue.51 Although the candidate immediately corrected himself, a video was shared by his opponents on social media which edited out his correction and apology.52 This is a simple example of the misuse of social media in a political context.
On the other end of the spectrum, both in terms of sophistication and the legal and ethical considerations at play, is the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

The Cambridge Analytica scandal – not just about privacy One of the most notorious examples of how social media has been deployed to influence and potentially manipulate voters is the Cambridge Analytica scandal which involved a combination of improperly sourced personal data and micro-targeted political advertising.
Cambridge Analytica, a political data-analysis firm funded by billionaire Robert Mercer, used 87 million Facebook users' data for online political advertising without their consent.

The data was acquired via “thisisyourdigitallife”, a third-party app created by a researcher at Cambridge University’s Psychometrics Centre.
Nearly 300,000 Facebook users downloaded it, which provided the researcher —and Cambridge Analytica— with their data and their friends’ data as well.53 Cambridge Analytica utilised the improperly sourced data to build psychographic profiles of voters in order to micro-target them with ‘seed’ advertisements that would be more likely to trigger an emotional response.
These ‘seed’ advertisements were planted through a suite of tools created by Facebook to assist advertisers to exploit Facebook’s newsfeed algorithm and promote potentially viral content.

54 These techniques were harnessed by US Senator Ted Cruz, who paid Cambridge Analytica $5.8 million in exchange for its services, and the Trump 2016 campaign.
A whistle-blower from within Cambridge Analytica stated that the people who funded the target campaign were motivated by fighting a ‘culture 49 Customs Act 1901 (Cth) s 233(1)(b).

50 Joint Investigatory Committee, Victorian Parliament, Inquiry into the Impact of Social Media on Elections and Electoral Administration (Final Report, September 2021) 6.2.2 <https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/emc/inquiries/inquiry/998>.
51 Adam Carey, ‘Could fake news infect the Victorian election?’, The Age (Melbourne, 2nd September 2018) <https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/could-fake-news-infect-the-victorian-election-20180830- p500u6.html>.

52 Dan Andrews, ‘We banned fracking.

They will reverse it’ (Facebook, 18th May 2018) <https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=external&v=1777081799023015>.
53Carole Cadwalladr and Emma Graham-Harrison, ‘Revealed: 50 million Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach’, The Guardian (online, 18 March 2018) <https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/cambridge-analytica-facebook-influence-us-election>.

54 J. Isaak and M. J. Hanna, ‘User Data Privacy: Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, and Privacy Protection’ (2018) 58(8) Computer 56 <https://doi.org/10.1109/mc.2018.3191268>.
15 Foreign Interference through Social MediaSubmission 41 war’, with ‘Cambridge Analytica’ being their ‘arsenal of weapons’.55 In 2016, Donald Trump's social media campaign outperformed Hillary Clinton’s social media campaign in every conceivable metric.56 In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission fined Facebook circa US$5 billion on account of the data breach,57 while, in Australia, the Federal Privacy Commissioner58 has launched proceedings against Facebook for multiple breaches of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).59 There are two interrelated issues at play from a legal and public policy standpoint: the breach of Facebook users’ privacy (which has frequently made headlines); and, perhaps just as perniciously, the implications of using powerful social media advertising tools to micro-target users with bespoke political messaging based on their demographic and psychographic information, especially in circumstances where the messaging is deliberately divisive, potentially false, and designed to prey on voters’ fears.60 Arguably a beneficial innovation in an e-commerce context (i.e.
to optimise the relevance of advertisements for products and services), should this power be available in a political one?

If we deem that it should, how do we prevent its misuse by malicious foreign actors against Australia’s interests?

International policy responses Three themes have emerged through ACLI’s analysis of international policy responses related to cyber- enabled foreign interference and disinformation: 1.
Policies aimed at increasing transparency in relation to those who finance political advertisements; 2.

Policies aimed at enhancing oversight in relation to and detection and mitigation of online disinformation; and 3.

Digital literacy programs to promote better public awareness of disinformation and how it can be identified.
Below is a non-exhaustive summary of the following jurisdictions’ responses to cyber foreign interference: the United States, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, the European Union, and Singapore.

55 Matthew Rosenberg, Nicholas Confessore and Carole Cadwalladr, ‘How Trump Consultants Exploited the Facebook Data of Millions’, The New York Times (online, 17th of March 2018) <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/17/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-trump-campaign.html>.
56 Byron Clark, ‘Facebook confirms: Donald trumped Hillary on the social network during 2016 election’ The Next Web (online, 4th April 2018) <https://thenextweb.com/news/facebook-confirms-trumps-ads-bested- clintons-during-presidential-bid>.

57 Julia Carrie Wong, ‘Facebook to be fined $5bn for Cambridge Analytica privacy violations – reports’, The Guardian (online, 13 July 2019) <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jul/12/facebook-fine-ftc- privacy-violations>.
58 Australian Government, Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, ‘Commissioner launches Federal Court action against Facebook’ (Media Release, 9 March 2020) <https://www.oaic.gov.au/updates/news-and- media/commissioner-launches-federal-court-action-against-facebook>.

59 Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) s 13G.


60 Issie Lapowsky ‘Cambridge Analytica Execs Caught Discussing Extortion and Fake News’, Wired (online, 19 March 2018) <https://www.wired.com/story/cambridge-analytica-execs-caught-discussing-extortion-and-fake- news/>.
16 Foreign Interference through Social MediaSubmission 41 Jurisdiction United States Responses to Cyber Foreign Interference In the aftermath of foreign interference aimed at disrupting the 2016 Presidential election, the United States has launched multiple inquiries focussed on or relevant to foreign interference.61 As a result, the United States has significantly increased efforts to bolster electoral integrity.
These efforts have culminated in campaigns, creation of government bodies to counter disinformation, novel legislation, and several judicial rulings.

The United States has created the Global Engagement Center under the Department of State62, which is tasked with tracking and evaluating counterfactual narratives while supporting the development and dissemination of accurate information both internally and externally to the United States.
Created by the United States’ Department of Homeland Security and the Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the #Protect2020 campaign63 sought to identify and plan for potential vulnerabilities to election infrastructure for the 2020 election season.

This initiative was paired with a publicly disseminated fact sheet on how to better recognise foreign interference and disinformation.
Federal indictments relating to foreign interference are additional proof of the United States’ goal in quashing electoral disruption.
Several resulted in the sentencing of Russian nationals and three Russian companies by the District Court of Columbia for reasons related to interference with the Presidential election via ‘information warfare’ with the objective ‘to sow discord in the US political system’.64 State legislators have similarly attempted to mitigate electoral disinformation through examples as the Bolstering Online Transparency Act (B.O.T Act) (California),65 requiring bots to reveal their ‘artificial identity’ when they are used to sell a product or influence a vote.
These laws have, however, raised concerns regarding their impact on free speech.66 61 See eg, the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Putin's Asymmetric Assault on Democracy in Russia and Europe: Implications for U.S. National Security (Report, January 2018).
<https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/SPrt_115-21.pdf>; US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Russia’s Use of Social Media; Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s, Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections: The Analytic Process and Cyber Incident Attribution (Report, 6 January 2017) <https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf>.
62 US Department of State, ‘Global Engagement Center’ (Webpage) <https:/ssvvff/www.state.gov/bureaus- offices/under-secretary-for-public-diplomacy-and-public-affairs/global-engagement-center/>.

63 Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Department of Homeland Security, ‘#PROTECT2020’ (Web Page) <https://www.cisa.gov/protect2020>.

64 United States of America v Internet Research Agency LLC (Indictment of the United States District Court of Columbia, 16 February 2018).
65 Bolstering Online Transparency Act (B.O.T.

Act), SB 1001 introducing Chapter 6 to Part 3 of Division 7 of the Business and Professions Code.

66 Madeline Lamo and Ryan Calo, ‘Regulating Bot Speech’ (2019) 66(4) UCLA Law Review 988; Bruce Schneier, ‘Bots Are Destroying Political Discourse As We Know It’, The Atlantic (online, 7 January 2020) <https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/01/future-politics-bots-drowning- outhumans/604489/>.
17 Foreign Interference through Social MediaSubmission 41 Jurisdiction Responses to Cyber Foreign Interference Looking to the future, the currently proposed Honest Ads Act 201967 would require technology companies to ‘make reasonable efforts’ to prevent foreign nationals from buying political ads on their platforms68 and require social media platforms to maintain public databases of all online political advertisements.69 The aim is to increase transparency about who is funding online advertisements to mirror the regulatory framework applicable to television.
Canada State-sponsored cyber interference has been identified as an ongoing issue for Canada and the Canadian electoral process70.
Published in December 2018 by the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, the report titled ‘Democracy Under Threat: Risks and Solutions in the Era of Disinformation and Data Monopoly’71 called for the removal of the exemption for political third parties from data privacy law, the mandating of identity authentication when placing political advertisements, and the creation of searchable, public databases of the identities of those who finance political advertisements.
As a result, the Election Modernization Act 201872 was enacted to amend the existing Canada Elections Act 200073, requiring digital platforms to increase the transparency of online advertisements, further mandating the creation of a public registry of advertisements including details of the message, name of authorising person, and financial agent of the advertisement74.
Furthermore, the Election Modernization Act 2018 prohibits foreign entities from spending any money to influence federal elections, while similarly prohibiting third party organisations from using foreign funds for their partisan activities and advertising75.

67 Honest Ads Act, S 1356, 116th Congress (2019) <https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th- congress/senatebill/1356/text>.

68 Ibid, cl 9.

69 Ibid, cl 8.


70 Communications Security Establishment, ‘Cyber Threat to Canada’s Democratic Process (Report, July 2021) <https://cyber.gc.ca/en/cyber-threats-canadas-democratic-process-july-2021-update>.
71 Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, ‘Democracy Under Threat: Risks and Solutions in the Era of Disinformation and Data Monopoly’ (Report, December 2018) <https://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Committee/421/ETHI/Reports/RP10242267/ethirp17/ethirp17- e.pdf>.

72 Election Modernization Act, SC 2018, c 31.

73 Canada Elections Act, SC 2000, c 9.

74 Election Modernization Act, SC 2018, c 31, s 325.1(1), (4).

75 Ibid, s 349(4), 351.1.
18 Foreign Interference through Social MediaSubmission 41 Jurisdiction Responses to Cyber Foreign Interference Furthermore, Canada has launched public media literacy programs76, including programs that are COVID-19 specific.77 Additionally, Canada has launched the novel Digital Citizen Contribution Program78, providing time-limited financial assistance for research and citizen-focused activities that aims to support democracy and social cohesion in Canada by enhancing and/or supporting efforts to counter online disinformation and other online harms and threats.
Germany In response to Russia’s attempts to interfere with the 2017 German federal election79, Germany deployed multiple measures to bolster electoral integrity.

This included the enactment of novel legislation, namely Germany’s NetzGD (Network Enforcement Act) (2017)80.
NetzGD requires platforms to send suspected criminal content directly to the German federal police once reported by a user, placing an obligation on social media platforms to act on hate speech within 24- hours, while further requiring social media platforms review complaints regarding illegal content within 7 days.

Should social media platforms fail to comply, they risk a fine of 50 million euros.
Germany further created the Cyber Defence Centre, a mobile quick reaction force within the Federal Office for Information Security (Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik/BSI), and a 13,500 strong Cyber and Information Space Command, recognised as the sixth branch of the German armed forces81.
Furthermore, Germany is home to independent media monitoring organisations such as Correctiv, who are tasked with pursuing and calling out online disinformation.82 76 See, Government of Canada, ‘Helping Citizens Critically Assess and Become Resilient Against Harmful Online Disinformation’ (Web Page, 2 July 2019) <https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian- heritage/news/2019/07/helping-citizens-critically-assess-and-become-resilient-against-harmful-online- disinformation.html>.
77 Government of Canada, ‘Supporting Canadians to Think Critically About Online Health Information’ (Web Page, 7 April 2020) <https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/news/2020/04/supporting-canadians-to- think-critically-about-online-health-information.html>.

78, ‘Digital Citizen Contribution Program’ Government of Canada (Web Page) <https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/online-disinformation/digital-citizen-contribution- program.html>.
79 See, eg, Dr Stefan Meister, ‘What Russia has achieved during the German election’ DGAP (Web Page, 22 September 2017) <https://dgap.org/en/research/publications/what-russia-has-achieved-during-german- election>.

80 Gesetz zur Verbesserung der Rechtsdurchsetzung in sozialen Netzwerken [Netzwerksdurchsetzungsgesetz] [NetzDG] 536/17 (June 30, 2017), <http://www.bundesrat.de/SharedDocs/drucksachen/2017/0501-0600/536- 17.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=1>.
81 Constanze Stelzenmuller, ‘The impact of Russian interference on Germany’s 2017 elections’ Brookings (online, 28 June 2017) <https://www.brookings.edu/testimonies/the-impact-of-russian-interference-on- germanys-2017-elections/>.

82 See ‘Journalism in the Public Interest’ Correctiv (Web Page) <https://correctiv.org/en/>.
19 Foreign Interference through Social MediaSubmission 41 Jurisdiction United Kingdom Responses to Cyber Foreign Interference Since 2017, the United Kingdom has launched a series of investigations into social media platforms,83 while deploying a combination of policy initiatives to combat disinformation and fake news.84 The United Kingdom recently became signatory to the International Principles on the Regulations of Tech Companies85 and calling for increased transparency and disclosure of political donors and social media platforms.
The United Kingdom acknowledges digital literacy as the fourth pillar of education and that government regulations must work in tandem with initiatives of platforms in assisting users to identify the reliability of content86.
The United Kingdom has, therefore, launched multiple digital literacy programs including the Ministerial digital literacy strategies87 and others that specifically address literacy in relation to disinformation.88 Currently, the United Kingdom has proposed a regulatory framework that seeks to classify online content and activity as harmful.
Therefore, if content, including disinformation,89 gives rise to a reasonably foreseeable risk of a significant adverse physical or psychological impact on individuals,90 social media companies will have a duty of care to address such content.91 An independent regulator, Ofcom, will 83 See, eg, Robert Booth, ‘Inquiry Launched Into Targeting Of UK Voters Through Social Media’, The Guardian (online, 18 May 2017) <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/17/inquiry-launched-into-how- uk-partiestarget- voters-through-social-media>.
This article discusses the UK launching an investigation of Facebook of data analysis for political purposes, whereby concluding that Facebook contravened the first and seventh data protection principles under the Data Protection Act 1998 (UK).
84 See, eg, Parliament of the United Kingdom, ‘‘Fake News’ Inquiry Launched’, Commons Select Committee (Web Page, 30 January 2017) <https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a- z/commonsselect/culture-media-and-sport-committee/news-parliament-2015/fake-news-launch-16-17/>.

85 House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, ‘Disinformation and “Fake News”’ (Final Report, 2019) [10] <https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcumeds/1791/1791.pdf>.
86 See, eg, Dame Frances Cairncross, ‘The Cairncross Review: A Sustainable Future For Journalism’ (Final Report, 12 February 2019) <https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/779882 /021919_DCMS_Cairncross_Review_.pdf>.
87 Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport and Caroline Dinenage MP, ‘Minister launches new strategy to fight online disinformation’, GOV.UK (Web Page, 16 July 2021) <https://www.gov.uk/government/news/minister-launches-new-strategy-to-fight-online-disinformation>.

88 See ‘RESIST Counter Disinformation Kit’ UK Civil Service (Web Page, 2021) <https://gcs.civilservice.gov.uk/publications/resist-counter-disinformation-toolkit/>.
89 Disinformation is defined as ‘the deliberate creation and dissemination of false and/or manipulated information that is intended to deceive and mislead audiences, either for the purposes of causing harm, or for political, personal or financial gain.
Misinformation refers to inadvertently spreading false information’: HM Government, ‘Online Harms White Paper: Full Government Response to the consultation’ (White Paper, December 2020) 49, [2.75] <https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/944310 /Online_Harms_White_Paper_Full_Government_Response_to_the_consultation_CP_354_CCS001_CCS122069 5430-001__V2.pdf>.

90 Ibid, 24, [2.2].

91 Ibid, 50, [2.81]-[2.82].
20 Foreign Interference through Social MediaSubmission 41 Jurisdiction Responses to Cyber Foreign Interference oversee and enforce this regulatory framework.92 This proposal was noted as being particularly important given the recent impact of disinformation on public messaging in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.93 France France’s Law Against the Manipulation of Information (2018)94 seeks to target the widespread dissemination of fake news primarily focusing on social networks and media outlets influenced by foreign states.
It creates a ‘duty for online platforms to cooperate in fighting against the dissemination of false information’ and requires the establishment of a tool for users to report disinformation, including when it is content promoted on behalf of a third party.

Similarly, the French law has introduced an injunctive power for judges to remove online content where it is determined that the content is disinformation.
The French law requires that during campaign periods (including three months prior to the election date), digital platforms must provide users with ‘information that is fair, clear and transparent’ on how their personal data is being used and platforms must disclose any money they have been given to promote certain information.
Lastly, France has recently created a specialised agency to fight disinformation and fake news to assist in electoral integrity.95 European Union The EU has introduced comprehensive policy responses with respect to the threat of cyber foreign interference.
As early as 2015, the European External Action Service’s East Stratcom Task Force was established by the European Commission to address Russia’s ongoing disinformation campaigns affecting the EU, subsequently birthing the ‘EUvsDisinfo’ Database, a searchable open-database for Kremlin-aligned disinformation.96 Similarly, in 2018, the EU High-level Group on Online Disinformation was created to advise on policy initiatives to counter the dissemination of ‘fake news’ and disinformation online, culminating in a final report.97 92 Ibid, 12, [35].
93 Ibid, 3, [7]-[8], [48]-[49], [84]-[87].

94 Loi n° 2018-1202 du 22 Decembre 2018 (France) JO, 22 Decembre 2018.
95 Michael Fitzpatrick, ‘France creates agency to fight foreign fake news aiming to undermine the state’ rfi (online, 5 June 2021) <https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20210605-france-creates-agency-to-fight-foreign-fake- news-aiming-to-undermine-the-state-cybercrime-russia-united-states-elections-brexit>; See Ania Nussbaum, ‘Macron Sets Up Fake-News Agency to Shield Election From Meddling’ Bloomberg (online, 13 July 2021) <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-13/macron-sets-up-fake-news-agency-to-shield- election-from-meddling>.
96‘About’, EUvsDisinfo (Web Page) <https://euvsdisinfo.eu/about/>.

97 Independent High-Level Group on Fake News and Online Disinformation, A Multi-Dimensional Approach to Disinformation (Report, March 2018).

<https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/6ef4df8b- 4cea-11e8-be1d-01aa75ed71a1/language-en>.
21 Foreign Interference through Social MediaSubmission 41 Jurisdiction Responses to Cyber Foreign Interference During the same year, the Social Observatory for Disinformation and Social Media Analysis was introduced to provide ‘a springboard for the social media sector to steer an understanding of its dynamics and the relationship between social media and other sectors’.98 The Observatory has since produced a community-based mapping service, a Source Transparency Index for verification, multiple fact- checking tools, and a repository of disinformation-related knowledge.
In a global first, the European Commission recently introduced a Code of Practice on Disinformation,99 which sets out wide ranging commitments including, inter alia, ‘transparency in political advertising’ and ‘the closure of fake accounts and demonetization of purveyors of disinformation’.100 This has culminated in online platforms including Facebook, Google, Twitter, and associations of the advertising industry committing to take action to combat online disinformation.101 Moreover, the European Commission enacted an ‘Action Plan Against Disinformation’102 and introduced the ‘Rapid Alert System’ that facilitates real-time communication about disinformation between EU Member States and public institutions.103 In March 2019, the European Commission ran its first European Media Literacy Week with 320 events across Europe,104 that have since extended to programs pertaining to COVID-19.105 Looking to the future, the EU anticipates enacting both the European Democracy Action Plan106 and Digital Services Act,107 instruments that both seek to fight disinformation, strengthen the media sector, create better accountability for platforms, and bolster protections for EU democratic processes.
98 Social Observatory for Disinformation and Social Media Analysis’, European Commission‘ (Website) <https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/825469>.

99‘EU Code of Practice on Disinformation’, European Commission (Web Page, 2018) <https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/code-practice-disinformation>.

100, ‘EU Code of Practice on Disinformation’, European Commission (Web Page, 2018) <https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/code-practice-disinformation>.
101 ‘Assessment of the Code of Practice on Disinformation – Achievements and areas for further improvement’ European Commission (Web Page, 2020) <https://ec.europa.eu/digital-singlemarket/en/news/assessment- code-practice-disinformation-achievementsand-areas-further-improvement>.

102 ‘Action Plan Against Disinformation’ European Commission (Fact Sheet, March 2019) <https://eeas.europa.eu/sites/eeas/files/disinformation_factsheet_march_2019_0.pdf>.
103 See Joint Communication to the European Parliament’, The European Council, The Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions [2018] JOIN/2018/3636 <https://eur- lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/ALL/?uri=CELEX:52018JC0036>.

104 European Commission, ‘Launch of the European Media Literacy Week – 18 to 22 March 2019’ (Web Page, 19 March 2019) <https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/AGENDA_19_1428>.
105 ‘Coronavirus: EU Strengthens action to tackle disinformation’ European Commission (Web Page, 10 June 2020) <https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_1006>.

106 ‘European Democracy Action Plan’ European Commission (Web Page) <https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/new-push-european-democracy/european- democracy-action-plan_en>.
107 ‘The Digital Services Act package’ European Commission (Web Page) <https://digital- strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/digital-services-act-package>.
22 Foreign Interference through Social MediaSubmission 41 Jurisdiction Singapore Responses to Cyber Foreign Interference In January 2018, the Parliament of Singapore established the Select Committee on Deliberate Online Falsehoods – Causes, Consequences and Countermeasures,108 which concluded that disinformation would undermine democracy and harm the democratic contestation of ideas.
A little over a year later, as a result of the recommendations of the Select Committee, the Singaporean Parliament passed the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act109 (POFMA) in May 2019 that came into effect in October 2019.

POFMA seeks to protect Singaporean society from deliberate online falsehoods created by malicious actors, mandating heavy criminal sanctions on said actors who are found to have deliberately spread falsehoods to undermine society.
Furthermore, in seeking to quash foreign interference, POFMA extends to actions committed outside the physical Singaporean jurisdiction.

Those who knowingly communicate falsehoods that pose a threat to public interest is liable to a fine up to S$50,000 and/or a term of imprisonment up to five years, susceptible to an increase up to S$100,000 and/or a term of imprisonment up to 10 years if an individual spreads falsehoods through a fake online account or a bot.
Although POFMA does not expressly seek to include the regulation of opinions, criticisms, political discourse, satire or parody, the legislation has sustained heavy criticism regarding its impact on free speech.110 Lastly, Singapore has recently launched a digital literacy framework via the Ministry of Communications and Information that aids both organisations and individuals.111 108 Select Committee on Deliberate Online Falsehoods - Cases, Consequences and Countermeasures’ Parliament of Singapore (Web Page) <https://www.parliament.gov.sg/sconlinefalsehoods>.
109 Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act 2019 (Singapore) <https://sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/POFMA2019?TransactionDate=20191001235959>.

110 ‘Singapore: ‘Fake News’ Law Curtails Speech’ Human Rights Watch (Web Page, 13 January 2021) <https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/01/13/singapore-fake-news-law-curtails-speech>.

111 ‘Digital Media and Information Literacy Framework’ Singapore Government (Web Page) <https://www.mci.gov.sg/literacy>.

23 Foreign Interference through Social MediaSubmission 41