Wednesday, 9 March 2022

Statements on parliamentary committee reports

Electoral Matters Committee

Inquiry into the Impact of Social Media on Victorian Elections and Victoria’s Electoral Administration

Ms CONNOLLY (Tarneit) (10:07): With 2022 being an election year, I am taking the opportunity—well, I took the opportunity—to look at the inquiry into the impact of social media on Victorian elections and Victoria’s electoral administration. As a newly minted candidate at the 2018 election—which now feels like quite a long time ago—I learned very quickly the importance of social media to go ahead and communicate with my electorate. Having never really used social media platforms before, this was all very new to me. Whether it was for our great government announcements in the 2018 election or addressing local issues, just reaching out to local residents or even celebrating the positives that were actually taking place in our community—so identifying not just the challenges but also the incredible opportunities for our community—it was a really steep learning curve in being able to navigate those social media platforms.

As members of Parliament quite often we feel we have to learn all the different apps—and I have to say I am not across all of them yet, whether it is Facebook or Instagram or Twitter and more—to engage with people across Victoria and indeed our electorates. All of this naturally plays into how information is distributed during elections, especially in election years, like this one. We have this incredible sensation of having not just one but indeed two elections here in Victoria this year. I remember the last election being filled with so much misinformation and deceptive conduct about party policies as well as how to vote. I think it was pretty obvious to this side of the house. We knew who was doing that, and we know that indeed they will be doing it again, whether it is for the federal election or indeed the state election at the end of this year. In the wake of COVID I have no doubt that we will see social media being weaponised and manipulated by conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers, and make no mistake, they will be spending big bucks to distort the truth come election time. It has therefore never been more important for an inquiry like the one that has just taken place to provide a framework to guard against attempts to weaponise social media to distort and undermine faith in our electoral processes. We all got a really horrific glimpse of what it actually looks like when myths and lies about the way elections turn out are given room to fester. We only have to look to our friends over in the United States when we talk about that.

Now, when I think about the findings in this report, particularly about the way that women and minorities have been treated online, it does not surprise me one bit. When I think about some of the people, or sometimes we call them trolls, that I have encountered on Facebook—and I am sure there are many of us here in this place that can point to many, many people—whether they are fake profiles or real people in the community that have felt the need to comment incredibly negatively across our social media platforms, you tend to see quite a pattern of it. I have rarely resorted to blocking them. They are entitled to their views, of course, but there comes a point when you notice a certain level of fixation that is not actually healthy when being exposed to it on a daily basis.

Now, I know change in this space is really tricky, which is why the report makes no specific recommendation to alter the regulation of online conduct in respect to elections. It does, however, make some key recommendations that are really important and actually achievable, which include that the Victorian Electoral Commission take a more active role online in providing accurate information about voting and how to vote and dispelling misinformation about voting practices. We have seen the federal election commission do this, frankly and fiercely dispelling election myths, and I have to say whoever runs their Twitter account probably deserves a pay rise given the amount of misleading statements made in respect to voting. But in all seriousness, ultimately there is no snap-finger solution to counter the torrent of misinformation that exists in the public discourse during election times. It is up to all of us—the Parliament, social media platforms, the VEC and ordinary individuals—to go ahead and work together to safeguard democratic processes and the right to a free and fair election against sometimes outright vile misinformation and online abuse. This is a really important report, and with the recommendations being handed down I would encourage everyone to take time to look at it.