Australia’s lockdown protests are homegrown but with foreign inspiration

In the lead-up to last month’s lockdown protests, organisers touted the action as part of a “worldwide rally for freedom”. So was this the coming-out party for a global movement with chapters in Australia, or an example of local activists and protesters answering an international clarion call? 

Analysis from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) suggests that groups behind the protest were homegrown but influenced by global players.

Analyst Ariel Bogle and researcher Albert Zhang looked at 14 groups (known as “channels”) on the Telegram messaging platform, comprising 12 Australian and two global channels involved in organising the July 24 protests. Telegram is preferred by conspiracy theorists, extremists and people with fringe beliefs because of its lax moderation. 

In May, an investigation by publication Logically found that one group, the Free Citizens of Kassel, had seeded protests around the world by centrally creating Facebook events, Instagram accounts, Telegram groups and graphics for use in different locations.

Bogle and Zhang’s analysis of Australian organisations shows the online spaces used to organise the protests existed before the astroturfing efforts of the Free Citizens of Kassel. But the idea found a welcome home in the Australian Telegram channels as participants latched on to the branding, graphics and event idea. 

“A 5 March 2021 press release from the ‘action group’ in Kassel, shared by the Melbourne channel, said it had received an overwhelming amount of support from many countries and was collaborating with organisers locally to deploy a wide variety of events,” Bogle and Zhang wrote.

Their analysis also shows cross-pollination between protesters and other fringe groups. Telegram allows users to easily forward messages between different channels. This feature is used widely to spread messages across the platform, as users can send it to thousands of people almost instantly. 

In this case, the pair found that 24% of all messages in the channels were forwarded on from other places, including “QAnon-related channels, anti-vaccine groups, Australian far-right groups, international far-right groups and Australian politicians”. Messages from independent MP and misinformation superspreader Craig Kelly and the Russian state-controlled television state RT featured in the Australian channels hundreds of times.

While platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram were important, Bogle and Zhang argue their analysis shows that Telegram played a crucial role in channelling the discontent of locals into action, with prompting from international activists. 

“Telegram appears to have played an important role in facilitating coordination of protests and dissemination of material between global and domestic accounts,” they wrote.