How safe is our democracy?

Today’s cover story examines how online disinformation campaigns pose a direct threat to the integrity of the upcoming election.

Australian Federal Police chief Reece Kershaw couldn’t have put it more bluntly. The growing number of disinformation campaigns in this country – from disaffected indivi­duals spreading lies, to foreign interference and espionage – poses a direct threat to the integrity of the upcoming election, he told Senate Estimates last month.

Journalist Cameron Stewart’s story on a fake email blitz ahead of two crucial NSW by-elections and the last federal poll is a timely case in point. The many millions of emails sent to voters by a Chinese-born Sydney businessman were offensive and increasingly frightening for the targets. But they also set off rumours that smeared candidates and undermined their campaigns. A sample of the emails indicates they were patently nonsense, but in a close contest, it doesn’t take much to influence the result.