this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2025
73 points (94.0% liked)

Australia

4595 readers
105 users here now

A place to discuss Australia and important Australian issues.

Before you post:

If you're posting anything related to:

If you're posting Australian News (not opinion or discussion pieces) post it to Australian News

Rules

This community is run under the rules of aussie.zone. In addition to those rules:

Banner Photo

Congratulations to @Tau@aussie.zone who had the most upvoted submission to our banner photo competition

Recommended and Related Communities

Be sure to check out and subscribe to our related communities on aussie.zone:

Plus other communities for sport and major cities.

https://aussie.zone/communities

Moderation

Since Kbin doesn't show Lemmy Moderators, I'll list them here. Also note that Kbin does not distinguish moderator comments.

Additionally, we have our instance admins: @lodion@aussie.zone and @Nath@aussie.zone

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
lodion@aussie.zone
bestusername@aussie.zone
eatham@aussie.zone
Nath@aussie.zone
73
Australia's spy chief warns anti-immigration rallies are being exploited by neo-Nazi groups and "Russian operatives" to sow discord, spread disinformation (www.reuters.com)
submitted 1 week ago by randomname@scribe.disroot.org to c/australia@aussie.zone
26 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Australia's spy chief has warned anti-immigration rallies are being exploited by neo-Nazi groups and "Russian operatives" to sow discord, as the country faces a trend seen across Western democracies of declining trust and rising disinformation.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation's director-general of security, Mike Burgess, said on Tuesday community cohesion is under attack in an unprecedented way.

...

ASIO is investigating pro-Russian social media influencers who are working with an offshore media organisation to condemn Australia's support for Kyiv, while also using "social media to spread vitriolic, polarising commentary on anti-immigration protests and pro-Palestinian marches", he said.

...

Australia in August expelled Iran's ambassador and said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had directed two anti-Semitic attacks in Australia by using intermediaries.

...

Such efforts were achieving "limited traction", he added, pointing to the stabilising impact of Australia's social-welfare safety net, compulsory voting and growing economy.

While social media algorithms are accelerating extremism and raising the risk of violence, it is people who create the content and decide to act on it, Burgess said.

"I worry we risk creating real world 'aggro-rhythms' where grievance, intolerance, polarisation and rhetoric feed on themselves," he said.

...

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] eureka@aussie.zone 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Russia to some extent is a scapegoat for our own failings and highlighting their involvement an attempt to de-legitimize these movements by association. I think these groups are de-legitimized by their existence. I don’t need Russian involvement to hate a bunch of Nazis.

Absolutely.

This OP account (randomname) along with a couple of others are foreign accounts which only post here to agitate against Russia, China and others. So when they come along to our instance every week to stir up a fuss about foreign interference, it's clearly insincere. They're not here to help us.

Neo-Nazis are the base problem here, foreign state actors (including both non-West states and Western mass media like Sky and Fox) are inflaming them. Propaganda accounts like OP are just opportunistically pushing a campist perspective, trivialising our local problems, the root problems.

[–] shirro@aussie.zone 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

This OP account (randomname) along with a couple of others are foreign accounts which only post here to agitate against Russia, China and others.

Yes, I have noticed. I don't mind the anti-Russia stuff. Fuck Putin. Our relationship with China is complicated and nuanced. While we need to prepare for hypothetical threats we also need to make the most out of our current relationship. I think promoting anti-Chinese sentiment plays into the hands of the supposedly Russian influenced racist neo-Nazi types the account is supposedly critical of and does nothing for the 1.3 million Australians with Chinese ancestry or other Australians of east asian descent.

Social media makes it too easy to do a huge influence operation and get unintended consequences. Polarized, angry societies that can't engage with each other for the common good are a bad outcome.

[–] eureka@aussie.zone 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Yep. And I was in a hurry so in case it needs to be made clear: fuck the Russian Federation, fuck it's governments, especially Putin. My issue isn't with who they're critisising.

[–] Gorgritch_umie_killa@aussie.zone 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Would it be possible to create a tag for these certain users who have demonstrated an insincere and clear propagandist-line in their approach to posting?

So, i don't think blocking them would help, just a game really of whack'a'mole, but if a prominent warning label like,

Account has been identified as a likely State actor

If it could be placed at the top of any posts these users make to AZ communities, it at least gives other users a heads up that this isn't a normal post, alerting them to the insincere campaign of influence. I don't even think these account holders would mind something like that, they don't seem to care about disguising their campaigns.

[–] eureka@aussie.zone 3 points 1 week ago

You'll have to ask the admins, I don't know how/if tagging works.

Account has been identified as a likely State actor

To be honest, I'm not ready to conclude they're specifically a state actor. They certainly could be, although there are other reasons people post think tank political propaganda.

So, i don’t think blocking them would help, just a game really of whack’a’mole

We've already seen one go through a bunch of names (Lucky8 was one of them), clearly the same user. A local warning seems to be a good approach as they might not even notice and therefore are less likely to try and evade.