Death by a thousand posts in social media wild west

There is a hidden campaign being fought this election in a largely unregulated battleground.

Bill Shorten poses for a selfie with workers at Australian Container Freight Services in Brisbane on Thursday. Picture: AAP

There is a hidden campaign of ­immeasurable size being fought this election in the post-truth, largely unregulated battleground of social media.

“For those who don’t know, here’s how Shortens (sic) inheritance tax will work,” starts the post on the “I’ll stand by Tony Abbott” Facebook page that has been shared more than 13,700 times (and counting).

What follows is a claim that has spread like nits at a preschool. That a Shorten Labor government plans to introduce a 40 per cent “death tax” and, if you can’t afford to pay it, the Australian Taxation Office will sell your family home.

“What about if they leave you a fully paid $40k car, congratula­tions, you now owe the Australian Taxation Office $16k for that car,” the post says.

“If you love your kids and think you should not be taxed over and over again on things you have not already been taxed on, do NOT vote Labor and do NOT vote ­another party that will preference Labor.”

The post even comes with a ­caveat for anyone who may have read Labor’s denials.

“The fact (Labor) have said they won’t bring in death taxes, means nothing to me, because going by past performance, I have to ­assume that once elected, it will he (sic) brought in, with the help of the Greens.”

A simple Facebook search by The Weekend Australian turned up hundreds of active posts with the identical wording, and spelling mistakes, being shared by voters. An early version of the post from April 29, made by a Queensland retiree, has been shared more than 6700 times. The text of the post has then been copied and pasted on to hundreds, possibly thousands, of individuals’ pages including a hairdresser in Coolangatta, a parent from Blue Mountains Grammar School, a butcher in Cammeray, a cleaner in Port Stephens, a small-business owner in Kalbarri, a real estate agent in ­Waterford, a personal trainer in Malaga and a farmer in Launceston.

And these are just the pages that are public.

It likely also has been shared in private groups and pages, mes­sages, text messages, emails and relayed in person to networks of family and friends, reaching a bigger audience than most politicians (the majority of whom voters probably couldn’t name or have never heard of) could dream of.

For anyone who is unclear, Bill Shorten vehemently has said he has no plans to introduce an ­inheritance tax if elected next Saturday. Australia last had a version of inheritance tax in the 1970s and recently the idea has been given the thumbs up by Labor frontbencher Andrew Leigh, championed by unions and not ruled out by members of the Coalition.

But no party or candidate running for election on May 18 has a policy to introduce one. Yet every day new posts are popping up claiming Labor will. And it seems there is little Facebook will do voluntarily to stop it.

Another Facebook post from May 7, on the Liberal National Chat Page — which has 11,000 followers — links to a Daily Telegraph story with the headline “Unions want tax on inherited ‘death’ money”. The only problem is the story is from July 20 last year. Another story, “Sorry kids, Bill wants to wipe out your inheritance”, from September 20 last year written by economist Peter Switzer, also has been picked up and spread as if new.

None of this is surprising given the increasing propensity for people to read just a headline, believe it, then share it with a pithy comment. A study by Columbia University in 2016 found 59 per cent of all links shared on social media aren’t clicked on.

The other battle being fought on Facebook is over local health funding.

Labor is running targeted advertisements telling voters in various locations across the country that the Coalition has cut $2.6 billion from the nation’s hospitals. The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners claims the average Australians soon may not be able to afford to go to the doctor. And the biggest pathology company in Australia is helping bankroll a campaign claiming access to free blood testing will collapse unless the Coalition doesn’t boost funding to the budget.

tais inquirer election social media

The claims are questionable but are having a big impact on Facebook because, as research suggests, voters care most deeply about issues that affect their daily life.

Under Australian rules, “electoral communications” that seek to influence voters must indicate who authorised them no matter where they occur. But that rule covers only political parties and advertising, not your average Facebook user.

And this is where the real fight is being fought.

More than 70 per cent of the 16.4 million voting-age Australians are active users of social media and it has become a key channel for political parties and third-party players to spread information and misinformation.

In terms of user take-up, Facebook is king in directly targeting Australians, with more than 18 million active users. It is especially effective in targeting outrageous and untrue messages to the politically disengaged.

What is happening behind the scenes, both Liberal and Labor campaigners have confessed, is now out of control.

A Facebook source estimates to The Weekend Australian that thousands of fake accounts have been set up to spread misinformation in this election. And, he says, it’s worth nothing that there’s nothing to stop political parties from making their own individual accounts or unverified groups.

The motivations for spreading misinformation aren’t always simple. What starts as an attack campaign can transform in the blink of an eye into something much nastier. Other times, trolls purposely set out to trick or misinform people.

Recently, several public Facebook groups with thousands of members were reported to the Australian Electoral Commission for claiming people could cast a “valid informal vote” (also described as a “vote of no confidence”) by writing in a candidate’s name on their ballot paper.

One Facebook group is telling voters they are being deliberately misled by the AEC about voting rules and if they write former One Nation senator Fraser Anning’s name below the line he could become prime minister. Both claims are, of course, not true.

“Digital disruption was so 2016,” one Labor campaigner tells The Weekend Australian. “This is the wild, wild west.”

Liberal campaigners deny they are behind the groups spreading word of the “death tax” in an attempt to ring a pseudo death knell on Shorten’s political career.

One Liberal says it is the ­social media equivalent of the 2016 “Medi­scare” campaign waged via text messages that the Coalition was forced to repeatedly deny.

But this time the “death tax” rumour also has been kicked along by politicians on verified accounts.

Liberals Josh Frydenberg, Sarah Henderson, Craig Kelly and Jane Hume have all posted about it. The LNP’s ­George Christensen has mentioned it almost daily on his Facebook page since April 22 and this week linked to a website from last year with a headline claiming it was on Labor’s agenda.

According to Zavy, a New Zealand-based social media listening and analytics tool, activity across all political parties has ramped up, with the Liberal and Labor parties posting on average 30 times a day.

By comparison, the average corporation in Australia posts only once a day.

During the past 30 days the Liberal Party has posted 927 times against Labor’s 1077.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson also posted a video to her Facebook page telling people that Shorten would introduce a death tax. This has been shared more than 4000 times and has attracted 1500 comments.

The idea of a “death tax” has become so widespread that Labor was forced to create a page on its website reiterating the party has “no policy or secret deal to introduce an inheritance tax”.

Google trends data shows searches for “bill shorten inheritance tax” and “death tax labor” have slowly risen since April 14, with most queries originating in Queensland.

Labor has attempted to create a counter-attack, with frontbenchers Chris Bowen and Jason Clare suggesting the Coalition also hasn’t ruled out introducing the tax. But that tactic hasn’t gained much traction.

The opposition has gained more success with its strategy to differentiate itself from the “top end of town”, claiming the ­Coalition has made a secret deal with the United Australia Party to give $80 billion in tax cuts to businesses and millionaires. Scott Morrison says he has committed only to a preference swap.

Mr Morrison stops for a selfie during a visit to Strathfield Square in Sydney. Picture: Gary Ramage

Before the election was called Facebook promised to “safeguard” democracy in Australia by launching a local fact-checking arm and cracking down on election meddling and the spread of misinformation. Posts found to be “false” wouldn’t be removed from the social network; rather, they would be demoted and displayed lower in the news feed.

But that doesn’t stop that post from being shared — and, in fact, when it is shared the ­algorithm would push it back up the news feed.

Labor reported posts and messages claiming Labor had done a secret “death tax” deal to Facebook after they first popped up on April 19.

The posts linked to a January 24 media release from the Treasurer with the headline “Death taxes — you don’t say, Bill!” and claimed Labor, the Greens and unions had signed a secret deal. Facebook ran a third-party fact-check and put up a blog post on April 30 saying the claims were false.

The social media giant didn’t answer The Weekend Australian’s questions about how many posts had been flagged as misinformation during the campaign period and if they had been taken down or just demoted.

A Labor source says Facebook’s last communications with the campaign team was that it was aware of the issue and monitoring the situation. But posts as recently as yesterday morning were active on Facebook linking to the Frydenberg press release with the same copied and pasted wording.

“What a wonderful world where we can leave so much to the government. Disgusting,” it says.