Electoral commission admits it doesn’t have the resources to scrutinise covert campaigns to influence votersAustralia’s electoral authorities lack the resources and powers to investigate the opaque funding used to spread political ads on Facebook, an inquiry has heard. The operation, codenamed Project Caesar, set up fake interest groups online, including one named Energy in Australia, and used them to spread paid political messaging to unsuspecting voters. Australian law requires that paid political ads provide the name and location of an authorising officer but do not compel advertisers to say who is providing funding. The AEC’s chief legal officer, Andrew Johnson, said his organisation lacked the resources to investigate who sat “behind the veil” of such ads, particularly during election campaigns. The hate factory: inside a far-right Facebook network Read more“Some of the authorisation requirements don’t provide a lot of detail of who is actually behind, and it does require that extra investigation,” he said.

Source: The Guardian December 06, 2019 02:45 UTC