Australian lawmakers recommend WeChat ban on govt devices for posing ‘unique national security risks’

An Australian senate committee after investigating how foreign powers could use social media to interfere in the country has recommended a number of rules and restrictions for several platforms, including imposing a ban on Chinese messaging WeChat, on Tuesday (August 1). Months back, the Australian government said it would remove TikTok from all federal government-owned devices over security concerns.

Committee’s recommendation

The report released on Tuesday, along with a ban on WeChat, also consists of 17 other recommendations, including new transparency rules enforceable by fines.

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The five-people committee led by Liberal Party Senator and shadow cyber security minister, James Paterson, also called for the ban on TikTok from federal government devices in Canberra to be extended to the devices of government contractors who also have access to Australian government data. This extended ban should also cover WeChat, according to the report.

Lawmakers have said they had been “particularly concerned” with the “unique national security risks” posed by companies like TikTok and WeChat “whose parent companies ByteDance and Tencent respectively, are irrefutably headquartered in and run from authoritarian countries like China”.

It also recommends the government should enforce a set of transparency rules for social media platforms which include, having an Australian presence,labelling state-affiliated media,disclosing content censorship,actions against accounts of elected officials, and government directions about content on their platforms.

If the social media platforms fail to meet the minimum transparency requirements or to abide by the rules, the companies should be fined and banned, as a last resort, at the discretion of the home affairs minister.

The committee also recommended that if the United States government forced ByteDance to divest its stake in TikTok, then the Australian government should also consider similar steps and ensure TikTok Australia is also separated from its China-based parent company.

Paterson told the Senate on Tuesday, how the health of social media networks directly affects the health of the country and foreign “authoritarian states know this”. The committee also recommended that Canberra help developing countries in the Indo-Pacific resist “malicious information operations” by authoritarian states.

“They (authoritarian states) do not permit free debate on their own social media platforms. They use ours as a vector for information operations to shape our decision-making in their national interest – at the expense of our own,” said Paterson, as quoted by The Guardian.

He also said that not all social media platforms are the same since the ability for a social media platform to be “weaponised” varies depending on the laws of the country where it is headquartered.

WeChat banned on certain Australian government devices

A report by Guardian Australia, back in April confirmed that the Chinese messaging app was banned in nearly a dozen federal departments, including the department of prime minister and cabinet, the department of foreign affairs and trade and so on.

The latest recommendations also did not face any pushback from the opposition Labor and the Greens parties but noted that while they were in favour of the proposed transparency framework a nationwide ban on certain apps would not be effective.

TikTok’s response to the report

Ella Woods-Joyce, TikTok’s director of public policy for Australia and New Zealand, said that while the company disagrees with some of the characterisations and statements about the Chinese video app, it welcomed that there was a nationwide ban recommended.

“We are also encouraged that recommendations largely appear to apply equally to all platforms,” said Woods-Joyce, on Tuesday, as quoted by The Guardian.

(With inputs from agencies)

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