There are significant gaps in Australia’s regulatory framework when it comes to electoral misinformation and disinformation served through paid-for advertising. This creates notable vulnerabilities in Australia’s online information architecture, such as the growing problem of threats to electoral integrity.

This research piece demonstrates issues with platform responses to electoral misinformation served through paid-for advertising and weaknesses in platform transparency reports to the Australian Code of Practice on Disinformation and Misinformation (the Code).

Each platform creates an annual report around their handling of political advertising and misinformation in their transparency reports under the voluntary code. However, none of these reports adequately addressed these issues.

This experiment suggests that self-reporting mechanisms under the code may be weak and require more effective scrutiny. It is simply too easy to propagate electoral misinformation via paid-for ads. Either platform policies are inadequate, or the ad approval systems deployed by platforms are not up to the task of accurately detecting misinformation.

Legislators and regulators must consider a risk-based, independently assessable and more comprehensive approach to social media regulation to address these vulnerabilities.