Victoria’s electoral commissioner has played down fears that young voters are especially vulnerable to online disinformation, saying they may be among the most media-savvy voters ahead of the state election.
About 10 per cent of the electorate will be aged between 18 and 24, with most young voters getting their news from social media. About half say they receive news through TikTok, Sven Bluemmel told a Monash University forum.
The November 28 election will be the largest in Victoria’s history, with 4.7 million people registered to vote. About 75,000 people will cast a ballot for the first time.
Mr Bluemmel said measures were being taken to combat misinformation and disinformation online, including regulation and the use of watermarks, but warned such measures could only go so far.
“In terms of media savvy, I actually think young people are pretty damn good,” he said.
“I don’t see that; I think they are, they just express it in different ways, and they get their information in different ways.”
The Australian Electoral Commission’s “Stop and Consider” campaign encourages people to assess online information carefully before responding to it.
Mr Bluemmel said the most effective response was to make voters better informed. “In military parlance, you’d call it target hardening,” he said. “You can’t stop the enemy from launching the missile, but you can make a stronger shield.”
Monash senior politics lecturer Benjamin Moffitt said younger people could be less susceptible to online falsehoods because they had grown up in a digital environment.
“I actually think young people are probably the most media literate generation around,” he said, adding that he was more concerned about political silos among older Facebook users.
Dr Moffitt said many young people understood policy issues, including the impact of housing pressures, and argued that misinformation would not compensate for policies they considered inadequate.
“We could have all the misinformation and disinformation stuff in the world, but if the policies that are on offer are crap for young people, that’s not going to change a thing,” he said.
Mr Bluemmel said democracy remained under pressure from threats including the changing online environment, but he was optimistic about its future.
“Despite all of these changes, the one thing for me that has not changed is, you get one vote, I get one vote,” he said.
