The purpose of this report is to detect and analyse coordinated activity that occurred on X (formerly known as Twitter) and Reddit during the initial Republican Primary Debate and the counter-programmed Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump interview on 23rd August 2023.

This research debunks speculation that a major state-backed campaign was deployed to influence political discourse in Australia on social media. The research analysed more than 69,000 tweets, from two low-points in Australia-China relations in 2020, and found no evidence the CCP was using bots to shape political conversation on the social media site.

This research has identified coordinated networks of Pro-Trump and QAnon social media clusters at the centre of coordinated efforts to disseminate disinformation about COVID-19, particularly the conspiracy theory that China engineered the virus as a bioweapon.