Mercury (Hobart)

Election warning over social media dangers

- Sue Bailey susan.bailey@news.com.au

A Tasmanian privacy expert has warned that targeted racist attacks and misinforma­tion on social media using artificial intelligen­ce will increase during next year’s federal election.

Terry Aulich said in the wake of racist attacks on John Kamara, the former Tasmanian of the Year and Labor candidate for Hobart in the Legislativ­e Council, people affected by “racist, threatenin­g or lying social media posts” should contact the offending social media platform and then follow up with the eSafety Commission­er.

He cited the case of the Bondi murders last Saturday where social media influencer­s named an innocent man.

“This cowardly attack on John is likely to be only the beginning,” Mr Aulich said.

“The person wrongly named in Bondi has also been severely damaged in all sorts of ways.

“During the Voice referendum when social media was very significan­t in terms of affecting people, and with a lot of misinforma­tion going around, I think that was a dry run for the next federal election.

“It is very dangerous because, particular­ly with artificial intelligen­ce, it’s now possible to create deep fakes in which people’s voices and their image can be reconstruc­ted literally from scratch.

“Politician­s, for example, can be shown saying things that they don’t believe in at all, literally because someone has reconstruc­ted an image and a voice.

“We’ve already seen that using (US president) Biden’s fake voice tell people to stay away from voting in the primaries in the US.”

Mr Aulich, who chairs the internatio­nal Privacy Experts Group, said online platforms such as X, formerly Twitter, where Mr Kamara was attacked in posts on Wednesday night, had reduced staff in Australia whose job it was to monitor and control abusive or threatenin­g posts.

He said AI fakes were “very realistic”. “The next federal election will be a test for the public and electoral authoritie­s as the deep fake technology is already being used in the US and is likely to be used here.

“In the long run, victims of misleading attacks are able to seek legal solutions but these take time.

“There’s a broader issue about future politics where bad actors will, in fact, literally get away with it for two or three days until action is taken against them.

“We’ve got to sharpen up that whole process so people know their rights.”

The next federal election is due in 2025.

 ?? ?? Mercury page 1 report on social media abuse of Mr Kamara.
Mercury page 1 report on social media abuse of Mr Kamara.

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