AEC puts heat on Facebook over election threat

The AEC has asked Facebook to remove unauthorised election content as the agency ramps up efforts to prevent disinformation.

The AEC has asked Facebook to remove unauthorised election content. Picture: AP

The Australian Electoral Commission has asked Facebook to remove four items of unauthorised election content from the social media service as the agency ramps up efforts to prevent disinformation during the election campaign in partnership with the nation’s top security agencies.

Australian Electoral Commissioner Tom Rogers said yesterday he was receiving daily briefings from a special electoral integrity taskforce, which includes the Australian Signals Directorate and ASIO, on threats potential threats to the democratic process.

“The major task in my view for the cyber taskforce is to make sure all of our electoral systems are safe and secure, and that is occurring constantly. But at the same time we are also very alert to this idea of disinformation,” Mr Rogers said.

The taskforce, which was trialled during last year’s Super Saturday by-elections and the recent NSW election, operates 24 hours a day.

Mr Rogers said the AEC had so far received 15 formal complaints related to electoral communications, and had issued three warnings to Facebook page owners over potentially illegal electoral content.

In a “dramatic change” from previous elections, Mr Rogers said the AEC was working very closely with social media companies to remove content that violated Australian electoral laws.

He said Facebook had been asked to remove four items of content, with the social media platform so far acting on two of the requests.

Facebook, which was heavily criticised for allowing foreign interference in the last US election campaign, recently announced a temporary ban on electoral advertising purchased overseas appearing on Australian users’ accounts.

Ahead of the close of rolls at 8pm Thursday, there were about 16,398,790 Australians enrolled to vote on May 18.

The AEC is expecting record number of pre-poll votes this year, amid “remarkable growth” in early voting.

In 2007, just 8.22 per cent of Australians cast a pre-poll vote, compared with 22.67 per cent in 2016.

The AEC estimates the election will cost about $300 million to conduct, with more than 70,000 temporary workers employed on election day.