Gareth Nicholson

Opinion | Debate on data privacy and Chinese apps could do with a dose of honesty

Australia wants to protect its online content from foreign interference, which China cannot object to, having long walled off its internet

It is normal for a country to debate what kind of content can and cannot be consumed within its borders, but this should be separate from the discussion over data privacy

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A man uses his phone outside a department store in Sydney in June 2019. An Australian senate select committee is looking into the potential for foreign interference in Australian politics through social media. Photo: AFP

Gareth Nicholson

Published: 1:00am, 17 Jul 2023

Last week an Australian senate select committee held a hearing on the potential for foreign interference in Australian politics through social media. Executives from Meta, Twitter, TikTok and Google were invited to appear, although giant Chinese platform WeChat declined to participate.

Australian Liberal senator James Paterson, a China hawk, said the Tencent-owned app’s decision not to attend could be interpreted as “contempt”, although he acknowledged that WeChat executives could not be forced to appear because the company does not have representatives in Australia.

Meta (formerly known as Facebook) told the senate inquiry it plans to label government-affiliated media accounts on its new Twitter-like platform Threads and build out a fact-checking system – although it did not specify when this would be ready.

None of this should be controversial. It is normal for a country to debate what kind of content can and cannot be consumed within its borders, with the aim of blocking misinformation and material that may offend public morality or lead to destabilisation. Throughout history, every country has had its censors.

Beijing is unlikely to complain given it has long walled off its internet from foreign interference, a position buttressed in recent years by strict content policies aimed at blocking criminal activity, misinformation, defamation and, last but not least, information not in line with the country’s values.

However, this debate should be entirely separate from the discussion over data privacy – which has seen ByteDance’s TikTok and other Chinese apps, including WeChat, dragged through a political quagmire in the US recently.