Social press have constituted a significant battle in Australia this election year as candidates attempt to reach younger voters. Getting their support is more electorally crucial than ever because Gen Z and Millennials then make up the majority of the vote bloc.
This strategy has also been used on Taiwanese social media platforms like Twitter and Red Note. Hundreds of Australians use these programs frequently as their primary source of news.
The research team at RECapture has spent decades monitoring social action on these platforms. On WeChat, we observed 319 Democratic Party advertising, 68 Labor Party ads, and 258 advertising from independent candidates between October 2024 and April 2025. More than 20 American politicians promoted themselves using Red Note. Both programs are becoming more and more popular with lawmakers.
However, there is a catch: political messaging on these programs is either hidden or banned. How do hopefuls circumvent the laws, then?
We’ve found that they employ influencers and third events, blurring the lines between unreported fighting and political advertisements.
breaking the law
To keep track of social marketing, platforms like Facebook and Google maintain open ad repositories.
However, such information is not publicly registered or subject to scrutiny on Twitter and Red Note.
WeChat has been a crucial tool for American officials since WeChat has been used to market to Chinese-Australian voters since 2019.
Our analysis has identified a rising political recognition of RedNote from 2022 onward, fueled by its small entry requirements and emphasis on physical content.
A change in US-based consumers from TikTok to RedNote in January increased the product’s popularity. Individuals of all colors are now using it.
However, social advertisements and campaigning are prohibited on Twitter. To restrict the awareness of political accounts, RedNote uses shadowbanning, which is the secret hiding of a particular type of content.
Social figures in governments around the world frequently bypass these limitations by engaging with Chinese-speaking voters through influencers or media outlets.
This strategy allows for outdoor platform and regulatory supervision for political messaging. It undermines social communication’s lack of accountability and clarity.
How do Twitter social ads work?
WeChat’s political advertising is not visible. WeChat requires official accounts creation from Chinese companies that are regulated by Tencent, a Chinese tech company.
Chinese-language press outlets in Australia act as brokers. They provide applicants with political campaign components.
Social promotion on WeChat is presented in three primary types:
- embedded within reports,
- as sponsored glad, and
- as short films that are made available via WeChat’s Channel feature.
Media stores and battle teams usually bargain advertising costs, which range from a few hundred to several thousand dollars, depending on the site’s influence and the target audience for the ad.
It’s difficult to track how much money is being spent on social ads on Twitter because it isn’t disclosed everywhere.
What appearance do these advertisements have?
For instance, we identified past Liberal Party member Andy Yin and Scott Yung, both of whom are currently running for impartial in Bradfield. In April, they both posted between two and eight social advertising on Twitter daily.
These advertisements included short videos in addition to their self-promotional information and another fighting activities.
Celebrity endorsements occasionally appear in this information. Yung and Yin used Chinese-based third-party advertising and marketing firms to attract stars to help them with their efforts in 2019 and 2025, both.
However, these tactics face criticism in the domestic community because of concerns about alleged Communist Party of China connections and possible” Chinese effect.”
However, a semi-private type of campaigning is hidden behind the pubic political ads.
Candidates primary their efforts to private group messages by adding a QR code to their political ads, which allows for a more precise form of engagement ( as evidenced by Reid Grange’s campaign’s sponsored content ).
How about Red Note?
Non-Chinese American officials frequently bypass shadowbans on RedNote by making symbolic gestures to express their affiliation with Chinese areas. This includes postings that feature people who have visited Chinese restaurants or who have taken pictures at Lunar New Year group activities.
Candidates with Taiwanese backgrounds frequently draw attention to their ties to well-known white Australian politicians, including John Howard and Tony Abbott, to demonstrate their social standing.
Rarely are gathering policies discussed, particularly contentious ones like Australia-US-China relations. When they do appear, they are frequently selectively focused on issues that concern Chinese immigrants and are considered appropriate for discourse on Red Note.
Chinese-Australian individuals frequently hold offline plan events to pin Chinese-Australian influencers. The bloggers then distribute pertinent RedNote information.
In order to promote their efforts, individuals rely on information makers, celebrities, followers, immigrant businesses, and Chinese-language media outlets.
Laws are falling short.
Candidates typically adhere to the guidelines for approval publication on their social media accounts in English.
However, these guidelines are frequently ignored on RedNote or Twitter.
Candidates frequently contract out their fighting job to Chinese advertising and media companies. The candidates therefore have little control over the activities that take place on these platforms, raising questions about potential mistakenly violated political regulations.
The Australian Electoral Commission ( AEC ) has discovered instances of unregistered pages of politicians and candidates.
Because the information is mainly shadowbanned, these are difficult to find. They wouldn’t be able to find many if people or the AEC searched for a particular president’s name.
The AEC issued guidelines for guidelines governing this kind of information in April. If there are any financial or gift-in-kind transactions involved, it stated that any democratic communications made by individuals or groups that are not social entities still need to be authorized.
Social events may include an license if they repost creative information, according to the AEC’s recommendations. The guiding principle is” when in doubt, accept it.”
The key issues are identifying who collaborates with whom, on what program, how information is remixed, and whether the partnership is volunteer or involves economic or in-kind purchases.
The AEC doesn’t constantly check Chinese social media platforms. This makes enforcing any laws about unavoidable.
There needs to be better governmental oversight of what happens on these programs given how many social individuals use them.
Writers: Fan Yang works as a research fellow at the University of Melbourne’s Melbourne Law School and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society. The Digital Media Research Center at Queensland University of Technology is where Dan Dai is currently pursuing a PhD. At Deakin University, senior teacher in conversation is Luke Heemsbergen. The University of Melbourne’s RECapture Project employs Stevie Zhang as a study helper. Robbie Fordyce and Mengjie Cai even conducted analysis.
This content was republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the text of the content.