April 20, 2023
Chinese-owned social media app WeChat is "worse than TikTok" according to a top US political expert who is urging the Australian government to ban the platform due to foreign interference concerns.
John Hopkins University fragile states expert Seth Kaplan, who was speaking from Washington, fronted a Senate committee on Thursday looking into foreign interference through social media.
The Senate Select Committee held its first public hearing in Canberra with experts including the US federal officials, academics and tech companies.
Dr Kaplan said he had "no doubt" WeChat was being used as a direct tool for the Chinese Communist Party to manage information and monitor Chinese-speaking populations in Australia.
He called on the Australian government to set out a clear compliance framework for how the platform should operate, and then ban the app if it failed to comply with Australian rules.
"Everything that we fear about what TikTok may become already is occurring on WeChat. Narratives are managed, information is managed, dissenting views are demoted or eliminated," Dr Kaplan said.
"And it's basically a narrative machine for the CCP and what it wants to promote, similar to what actually happens in China."
"I'm generally in favor of a ban. I don't think there's any other way for your government or my government to handle it."
Dr Kaplan's warning comes after the Australian government banned TikTok on Commonwealth-issued devices due to concerns over potential for data harvesting and access by the Chinese government.
The move was also followed by other states and territories including the ACT.
The messaging app WeChat is owned and developed by Chinese-based tech behemoth Tencent, with 1.2 billion users worldwide, and is regarded as a primary information platform for Chinese communities.
Former prime minister Scott Morrison lost control over his official WeChat account early last year, sparking several Liberal MPs to call for a boycott of the app.
Dr Kaplan cited an example of how WeChat helped to sway the outcome of a local election in Canada by mobilising a large number of app users against a candidate with anti-CCP views.
"WeChat is managing information helping to mobilise Chinese speakers and then basically seeking coalition partners among the non-Chinese language speaking civil society," he said.
"And all this spatially, is direct interference in the politics of the country."
Dr Kaplan accused Tencent of managing the platform under the instruction of the CCP, controlling the types of news and information being posted by Chinese-language media outlets.
"If you cannot use WeChat you cannot reach a lot of people," he said.
"You either have to do everything in English which limits your penetration or basically you're greatly constrained of what you can do because your audience uses WeChat."
"This has great implications for how civil society is functioning among anyone who uses the Chinese language."
Senate committee chair and shadow minister for cybersecurity James Paterson said the inquiry was investigating social media platforms that had their headquarters in authoritarian countries.
Mr Paterson said it "spoke volumes" many countries had already banned TikTok from government devices, but there were"millions of other Australians who use applications like this who are also at risk".
"This is a first step in hardening our institutions, in our democracy, to resist these attempts to undermine us, to undermine our social cohesion and to undermine our national unity," he said.
"Because of the strategic environment we operate in, we cannot allow a foreign authoritarian government to have unregulated access to millions of Australians users and their devices."
The Chinese embassy has been contacted for comment.
