Australian politicians, including the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader, are using China’s largest social media platform, WeChat, to target Chinese-Australian voters in key marginal seats and, as a result, risk being kicked off the platform.
The politicians are using official accounts set up by Chinese citizens which means that not only does the practice appears to be a breach of the platform’s terms and conditions, but it also means Australian politicians are open to Chinese Government censorship.
WeChat terms and conditions state that "the initial registration applicant shall not donate, borrow, rent, transfer or sell the [WeChat] account, nor permit any non-initial registration applicant to use the Weixin account."
Mr Shorten's and the ALP's official account is registered to an unidentified Chinese man in the Shandong province and Prime Minister Scott Morrison's WeChat official account was registered in January under the name of an unknown Chinese citizen in the Fujian province.
As such, the politicians are breaching WeChat’s rules and the user agreement states they are entitled to ban or cancel the accounts.