“Google, Facebook and Twitter have been far more willing to engage with us this time around than they ever were previously,” he said.
Despite this, Mr Rogers conceded that the AEC had to operate within strictly defined statutory powers, most of which were established before the rise of cyber attacks and fake news.
For example, the 1918 Electoral Act that governs the commission, contained no provision to insist on truth in advertising claims. But changes made last March, to extend the authorisation disclosure requirement to political advertising on social media, were an example of the AEC adapting to meet changing needs.
“I have no role in sanctifying or demonising a particular message from a party, and that’s deliberately the case … Frequently at every election, people say stuff that others may think is stretching the truth,” Mr Rogers said.
“The AEC doesn’t have the statutory authority to compel further action [from large social media companies] … Many of them are based overseas in any case. Australian law doesn’t run that far.
“It’s difficult for legislation to keep up with rapidly evolving new capability. But I think it has adapted … This is an evolving area. There’s no end point.”
Foreign threats
Though Mr Rogers declined to comment on why foreign operators may try to interfere in the Australian federal election, experts said it came down to a mix of intelligence gathering and point scoring.
Australian National University professor and former intelligence officer John Blaxland said, in the case of China, a cyber attack was likely to signal a warning for Australia to stay in line.
“[A hack] generates fear of repercussions for actions that may be in Australia’s interests but are inimicable to those of China. This isn’t some distant, esoteric issue. It’s real and it’s about personal lives, dark secrets, mistresses, blackmail opportunities, and coercion,” he said.
Michael Sentonas, vice president at cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike, said politically motivated cyber attacks were not always aimed at influencing the outcome of an election.
“It’s more about understanding what an adversary seeks – what incoming political parties think,” he said.
Tech company schemes
The AEC’s efforts to secure the federal election comes amid heightened scrutiny on social media companies to clamp down on misinformation on their sites.
Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential elections sparked unprecedented criticism of Google, Facebook, and Twitter over their handling of fake news and raised fears about the vulnerability of these sites to exploitation by foreign influence campaigns.
In February, Twitter introduced measures around disclosure of billing information, ad spend and demographic targeting data for paid content, beyond the authorisation notice required by legislation.
Asked about the exemption of issue-based political advertising from the new requirements, Twitter’s local head of public policy Kara Hinesley said the company remained in support of “open discourse”.
At the Munich Security Conference in the same month, Google published a white paper on fighting misinformation on search, news, and YouTube. The company is also funding a fact-checking unit of the Australian Associated Press.
Facebook said it had already implemented measures like shutting down fake accounts and increasing disclosures around ads, and that it would make further announcements after the Australian election has been called.
Meanwhile, the AEC announced that a record 96.3 per cent of eligible voters, or 16.25 million people, were now registered to vote.
“This will technically be the largest election in Australian history,” Mr Rogers said.
On the challenge of assembling and managing 80,000 polling officials who receive “adequate but limited training,” Mr Rogers drew an analogy.
“It’s like setting up a Fortune 500 company in four weeks,” he said.
from Just News Viral https://ift.tt/2NNlQFH
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