Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are now significant mechanisms for the dissemination and perceived validation of information about politicians, public policy issues and political processes. They provide opportunities for foreign and Australian interests to seek an immediate advantage and, as importantly, to foster community distrust and disengagement from both mainstream political parties and fundamental institutions such as the judicial system. The extent to which foreign interests (especially those from non-democratic states such as Russia, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the People’s Republic of China) are engaged in substantive and illicit use of Australian social media is unknown and is unlikely to be fully identified. There is little solid research regarding interference among ethnic communities and more broadly among the overall Australian population. In our submission we highlight specific concerns and contextualise the Committee’s examination of risks by noting the impact of highly partisan domestic media, likely to have a greater impact than interference by foreign state/other actors. We suggest mechanisms that complement recommendations by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in its Digital Platforms report. Those mechanisms are low cost, administratively achievable and consistent with the Australian Constitution.It also noted works such as the European Parliament's 2018 ‘Computational propaganda techniques’ briefing; Sam Woolley and Phil Howard (eds) Computational Propaganda: Political Parties, Politicians, and Political Manipulation on Social Media (Oxford University Press, 2018); ‘Software Power as Soft Power. A Literature Review on Computational Propaganda Effects in Public Opinion and Political Process’ by Rose Marie Santini, Larissa Agostini, Carlos Eduardo Barros, Danilo Carvalho, Rafael Centeno de Rezende, Debora G. Salles, Kenzo Seto, Camyla Terra, and Giulia Tucci in (2018) 11(2) Partecipazione e Conflitto 332; and the European Parliament ‘Foreign influence operations in the EU’ briefing.
'Tailoring Election Regulation: The Platform Is the Frame' by Julie E Cohen in (2020) 4 Georgetown Law Technology Law Review comments
According to conventional wisdom, legislative efforts to limit platform-based electoral manipulation—including especially laws that go beyond simply mandating additional disclosure about advertising expenditures—are most likely doomed to swift judicial invalidation. In this Essay, I bracket questions about baseline First Amendment coverage and focus on the prediction of inevitable fatality following strict scrutiny. Legislation aimed at electoral manipulation rightly confronts serious concerns about censorship and chilling effects, but the ways that both legislators and courts approach such legislation will also be powerfully influenced by framing choices that inform assessment of whether challenged legislation is responsive to claimed harms and appropriately tailored to the interests it assertedly serves. I identify three frames conventionally employed in evaluating the design of speech regulation—the distribution bottleneck, the rational listener, and the intentional facilitator—and explain why each is ill-suited to the platform-based information environment, which presents different incentives and failure modes. In their place, I offer the platform itself as a new frame. I identify the harms and interests that frame brings into focus and offer some preliminary thoughts on the kinds of legislation it might permit.
Legislation aimed at electoral manipulation rightly confronts serious concerns about censorship and chilling effects, but the ways that both legislators and courts approach such legislation will also be powerfully influenced by framing choices that inform assessment of whether challenged legislation is responsive to claimed harms and appropriately tailored to the interests it assertedly serves. In Part I of this Essay, I identify three frames conventionally employed in evaluating the design of speech regulation—the distribution bottleneck, the rational listener, and the intentional facilitator—and explain why each is ill-suited to the platform-based information environment, which presents different incentives and failure modes. In their place, I offer the platform itself as a new frame. Part II defines the frame more precisely, identifies the harms and interests it brings into focus, and offers some preliminary thoughts on the kinds of legislation it might permit.
