How do candidates skirt Chinese social media bans on political content? They use influencers

This election, social media has been a major battlefield as candidates try to reach the young voters. As General Z and Millennials now create major voters blocks in Australia, it is more important to gain their support than ever.

The effort has also been played on Chinese social media platforms, ie Weichhat and Rednot. Thousands of Australians Use these apps, often as the main source of news.

Recurrence The research team has been monitoring political activity on these platforms for years. Between October 2024 and April 2025, we saw 319 Liberal Party Advertisements, 68 Labor Party Advertisements and 258 advertisements from independent candidates on WeChat. More than 20 Australian politicians used rednote for self-consciousness. Both platforms are becoming increasingly popular among politicians.

But there is a grip: political communication on these apps is either banned or hidden. So how do candidates work around the rules?

We have found that they use impressive and third parties, staining the lines between authorized political advertising and unknown election campaign.

Scrutinize

Like platform Facebook And Google Maintain public advertising repository to document political advertisements.

On WeChat and Rednote, however, such materials are not formally registered or subject to public investigation.

Since 2019, there has been an important platform for WeChat Australian politician Trying to reach the Chinese-Australian voters.

Since 2022, our research has observed increasing political popularity RadonotIts low entry motivated by emphasizing obstructions and visual materials.

In January, an innings by the US-based users from Tikokococae further increased the prominence of the platform. Now, candidates of all stripes are using it.

But wechat was banned Political advertisements and campaigns. Rednote uses shadowbanning (secret hide of specific material) to limit the visibility of political accounts.

As a result, political figures in democracy globally bypassing these restrictions by working with Chinese-language media or affected bypass, which reach Chinese-speaking voters.

This strategy enables political messages outside the forum and regulator inspection. It reduces transparency and accountability in political communication.

How do political advertisements work on WeChat?

Political advertisement on WeChat is not transparent. WeChat requires an official account Registration Tencent recognized by Chinese tech group through Chinese businesses.

In Australia, Chinese media outlets serve as middlemen. They distribute political campaign material on behalf of the candidates.

Political advertisement on WeChat is presented in three main formats:

• Embedded within articles
• Sponsored
• And as a short video distributed through the channel function of WeChat.

The cost of the advertisement is usually interacted between media outlets and campaign teams, with a few hundred to several thousand dollars, which depends on the impact of the outlet and the AD’s target demographic.

Spending on political advertisements on WeChat has not been disclosed anywhere, so it is very difficult to track how much money is being spent in this way.

What do these advertisements look?

For example, we identified Scott Yung, who is a liberal candidate for Benelong and Andy Yin, a former Liberal party member, now running as an independent for Bradfield. Both of them were published in April between two and eight political advertisements on the Vichat Daily.

These advertisements were in addition to their self-promotion material and other campaign activities through short videos.

This material includes celebrity endorsements sometimes. In 2019 And 2025, respectively, Yung and Yin used third-party media and marketing companies located in China to recruit celebrities to support their campaigns.

However, such strategies are criticized domesticly due to potential “Chinese effects” and concerns about alleged concerns. Link To the Communist Party of China.

But the campaign is a semi-private form behind public political advertisements.

By attaching a QR code for his political advertisements, candidates direct their campaigns to private group chats, which enable the more targeted form of engagement (in the case of a liberal candidate for Reed Granz Chung Sponsored material,

What about Rednote?

Non-Chinese Australian politicians are often found around Shadoban on Radnote by indicating their relationship with Chinese communities through symbolic gestures. This includes posts showing pictures taken in Chinese restaurants or Lunar New Year Community Events.

Chinese background candidates often highlight their relationship with major white Australian politicians, such as former Prime Ministers Tony Abbott and John Howard, to show their standing and political credibility within the party.

Discussion of party policies, especially controversial such as Australia-US-China relations, are rare. When they are, they often selectively focus on matters of anxiety for Chinese migrants or who think safe for discussion on rednote.

Chinese-Australian candidates often organize their offline campaign programs to target Chinese-Australian affected. The affected then spread the relevant material on the rednote.

As a result, candidates rely on material creators, affected, supporters, migrant businesses and media outlets to promote their campaigns.

Rules falling from the road

Candidates usually follow the authority disclosure rules on their English social media pages.

However, these rules often disregard Rednote or WeChat.

Candidates often outsource their promotional work for Chinese media and marketing agencies. This means that the candidates have minimal monitoring of activities on these platforms, expressing concern whether there may be electoral rules. Unknowingly violated in the process.

We have found examples of unauthorized pages of politicians and candidates who have not paid any attention by the Australian Election Commission (AEC).

It is difficult to find because the material is largely ShadyIf users or AEC discovered the name of a particular candidate, they will not be able to get much.

In April, AEC Advised Rules about authorizing such material. It states that electoral communication distributed by political institutions or organizations still still requires authority if monetary or gift-in-transactions are included.

Under the guidance of AEC, it has been further stated that political parties should include an authority if they re -prepare the collaborative material. The general principle is: “When in doubt, authorize it.”

The major challenges here are identifying who cooperates with whom, on which platform, how the material is remixed, and whether cooperation is voluntary or it includes monetary or in-in-transactions.

AEC Does not actively monitor Chinese social media platform. This makes any rule almost impossible.

Given how much these apps are using, given what happens on them, it requires better regulator monitoring.

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