WeChat and the 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice Referendum: Key actors, public opinions, misinformation and disinformation

WeChat is a Chinese-language social media service. In 2020, WeChat had 690,000 accounts in Australia with 500,000 being active daily (Taylor 2023). The platform remains as a key news resource for Chinese Australians and Chinese migrants within Australia. Between 8 January 2023 and 7 December 2023, the Voice Referendum was the topic of 262 Chinese-language news articles published from Australian-based WeChat news accounts. Discussions on the Voice peaked between September and October 2023, with 3-4 articles published daily that engaged with the topic. Within the WeChat userbase, a substantial segment of the Chinese Australians expressed a preference for voting No, including 56% of comments collected from relevant articles and 92% of the comments originating from short videos. Analysis of 2,715 user comments on WeChat indicates that users predominantly engaged with short videos promoting a ‘No’ vote against the referendum proposal. In comparison, videos promoting ‘Yes’ votes in favour of the proposal saw significantly lower engagement. The study has identified the rising influence of short videos published through WeChat’s Channel. There were 8 short-video accounts contributing 20 videos discussing the Voice referendum. The surge in short videos has created a space where misinformation and disinformation thrive. As we enter 2024, we continue observing the Voice referendum featuring WeChat’s public posts, particularly regarding the potential implications of this event on the upcoming 2025 Australian federal election.