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SYDNEY —The world's biggest social media platforms are facing an Australian Senate inquiry Tuesday to explain how they're tackling the threat of foreign interference. The domestic spy agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, has said that espionage and foreign interference are now the main security threats to Australia, ahead of terrorism.
Federal lawmakers in Canberra are investigating the risk posed to Australia's democracy by foreign interference on social media. A Senate inquiry Tuesday is asking Meta, Google, Tik Tok and Twitter how they're addressing the threat.
The Chinese-owned messaging app WeChat has reportedly refused to appear before the committee in Canberra.
Meta, which owns Facebook, has said it takes the issue seriously and has removed more than 200 foreign interference operations since 2017.
The U.S. company has warned that the internet's democratic principles were increasingly being challenged by "strong forces."
Experts say the hearing comes at a crucial time as the federal government in Canberra considers major changes to Australia's privacy laws.
They could include greater limits on the profiling and targeting of social media users.
Vanessa Teague, a professor at the Australian National University, is calling for more controls of so-called microtargeting. It is a marketing plan that uses data to identify the interests of individuals, which is then used to influence them.
Teague told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that the strategy can be used to shape consumer and political behavior.
"I really hope that the committee members are able to ask everybody, whether they are American companies or Chinese companies, about the abuse of microtargeting for political purposes and I think we could go a long way towards informing better privacy law to make systematic violation of privacy for advertising purposes illegal," she said.
In its submission to the Canberra parliament's Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media, the Australian Human Rights Commission warned that social media was "quickly becoming the weapon of choice for foreign actors seeking to unduly influence Australia" and that "foreign entities now possess an unprecedented ability to interfere with...information."
The commission urged the Senate committee to set up a permanent government taskforce "dedicated to preventing and combating cyber-manipulation in Australia."
The inquiry this week holds its final public hearings. On Wednesday, it is scheduled to hear from government departments, intelligence agencies and the police about tackling foreign interference online.
Lawmakers are due to present their final report by August 1, 2023.