July 11, 2023
AMANDA STOKER: Joining me to discuss this is the chair of the Parliamentary inquiry, Shadow Minister for Home Affairs, James Paterson. Senator Paterson, welcome to the program. Why is WeChat a threat and why have they refused to front up to the parliamentary inquiry?
JAMES PATERSON: Good evening, Amanda. Well, WeChat is one of those Chinese technology companies owned in this case by its parent company Tencent, which is intimately tied to the Chinese Communist Party for a myriad of different connections and controls. Really, the difference between the party and the company and the state are indistinguishable. And it serves the interests of the Chinese Communist Party, not just at home, but abroad. It engages in mass censorship on the platform, it engages in mass surveillance on the platform, and it is a key vector for foreign state sponsored disinformation into Western democracies. It's incredibly popular, as you said in your introduction with diaspora communities, particularly the Chinese-Australian community here in Australia, and it has a profound impact on that community, both good and ill. And so its behaviour is absolutely worthy of scrutiny by a parliamentary committee, in this case a Senate committee. And yet, despite repeated invitations from the committee and a personal appeal from me in a direct the letter to them, they have steadfastly refused to appear before the committee and answer any questions that we have for them in an open forum. And that is deeply disturbing. It shows contempt for the Parliament of Australia and total disrespect for our laws and oversight mechanisms. If they're not willing to comply with this, it raises very grave doubts about their willingness to comply with Australian law.
STOKER: There is something really incongruent about having the Labor federal government pushing for laws that would put in place unprecedented censorship on the basis of misinformation and disinformation, while at the same time allowing an app with a capacity to, unchecked, provide as much misinformation as it could possibly want to some one million voters in this democracy, with no accountability whatsoever. Given that the WeChat representatives won't even turn up to parliament, is it time that we seriously consider the banning of this app in Australia?
PATERSON: Well, Amanda, the government is right in one sense to be concerned about disinformation, but I just have no confidence at all that the draft bill which they've put forward will actually deal with that problem, and particularly that it will be effective in dealing with the foreign state sponsored disinformation which is being pumped into our democracy. I've no confidence that it deals with WeChat, or indeed TikTok, or indeed the problem of authoritarian states weaponising Western headquartered social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook or YouTube either. And so, I think it is of great concern the government is going down the wrong path on this issue. What I would much prefer to see from the government is not tech platform-enabled censorship of Australians and their rights to free speech. I'd much rather see transparency requirements imposed on these platforms so that if they are censoring things or if they are promoting things at the behest of a foreign authoritarian government that we at least know that they're doing so, and we can effectively deal with that and respond to it.
STOKER: I think the bill that's been put forward to empower ACMA to be supervising these social media companies is much more directed at the censorship of Australians than it is about getting fairness out of the companies that are providing these services. James, during Senate hearings today, you spoke with a number of tech companies and TikTok representatives confirmed that China-based employees have the power to change the algorithms behind their product. There was also confirmation that they're subject to national security laws in China. You'll remember this:
[EXCERPT]
PATERSON: You agreed that there are TikTok employees based in China who work on the app. I'm asking, are those employees subject to the national security laws of China - yes or no?
ELLA WOODS-JOYCE: Well, Senator, as I understand it the Chinese law applies no more, no less, to any business that may have operations and staff in China...
PATERSON: Great. If a request was made under those laws for access to that data, what would be the basis for those employees or the company to refuse the access?
ELLA WOODS-JOYCE: Well, Senator, we have never been asked, and as we've repeatedly stated, including our CEO in his most recent congressional evidence, we would not provide that user data if we were asked.
[EXCERPT ENDS]
STOKER: Those are some wordy admissions if ever I've seen them. But they've said the data would never be used. Think of how severe the Chinese laws are in practice. Do you have confidence in the assurances that were given by TikTok's representatives tonight?
PATERSON: It was like pulling blood from a stone, Amanda. But eventually we did get some important concessions from the TikTok representatives. They did try and stick to their talking points as much as they could, but had to acknowledge the reality that, first of all, TikTok is a Chinese company, that it has China-based employees, that they're subject to the laws of China, and that they would have to comply with those laws if they're asked to, and that they may, in fact, have to keep that cooperation secret. Now they don't want to make those admissions, they don't want to make those acknowledgements, because the implications that flow from that are very disturbing. They've already admitted that Australian user data is accessible to their China-based employees, they've now admitted their China-based employees can also make changes to algorithm which I'm not aware of them ever previously publicly conceding and the implications of that are very real. It means that the long-arm of the Chinese state can reach into the heart of the Australian democracy and influence a platform which is an increasing source of news and information about the world for young people. Now if they've got control of that app, what is on it, and also what data it collects on its users, that's a very powerful tool which they can wield against us and I'm very concerned about the implications of that for Australians. We're going to make some very tough recommendations to the government about confronting this problem finally and deal with it.
STOKER: I'm glad you're on the case. Senator Paterson, thank you very much for your time tonight.
ENDS
