The former National Cyber Security Adviser and leading privacy experts have rounded on social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn for failing to do enough to prevent mass intelligence gathering about influential Australian citizens by Chinese operatives, as the tech giants defended their efforts.

Former head of the Australian Cyber Security Centre Alastair MacGibbon, who was the most senior cyber adviser to Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister and is now chief strategy officer at the country's largest security services company CyberCX, said revelations in The Australian Financial Review on Monday were significant in showing how US-based tech platforms were being weaponised by China to sow dissent in the West.