WHOSE VOICE WAS HEARD?
The Impact of Social Media in the 2023 Voice to Parliament Referendum
By Sophie Davidson
Saturday the 14th of October has been and gone, meaning the referendum is over.
The verdict?
60% of Australians voted No to make a change to the constitution for an Indigenous Voice to parliament. This is the constitution that was made in 1901. The same constitution which has only been changed 8 times in 122 years. And the very same constitution that specifically excluded First Nations people from policy making for over 60 years.
So, why doesn’t Australia want to make changes to it?
While the question asked in the Referendum was whether we should vote Yes or No to change the document, it became a politicised question entwined in years of speculation, debate and fear. The Question became much more than just a Yes or No answer.
Facebook ads, Instagram posts, TikTok videos about the referendum, repeatedly drilled phrases into their content, “Vote No to the Voice of division” or “Vote Yes to a Better Future for all Australians”, which gave barely any clarification to the matter at hand. Instead a term coined by the Liberals built of ignorance: ‘If you don’t know, Vote No!’, subsequently prevailed.
While social media was once seen as renewed hope for expression and a way out of Murdoch’s monopoly in Australia, it seems to be the very thing entangling us in these vines of conspiracies, ‘communities’ and unbeknownst to most, playing a large part in controlling the way we make judgement on things like politics.
In August 2022 just months before 'official' campaigning started in February 2023, the Yes vote to alter the constitution was in favour by 64%, which in fact flipped by the end of the polling. I ask myself what changed? Did social media play a crucial role in the outcome of a No Vote?
CEO of CM Marketing, Chloe Macchia has been analysing for several months the way in which social media has been used to pit two sides against each other. Macchia explains the No Campaign honed into the concept of creating spaces that like-minded individuals became a community, where their opinions and beliefs validated each others.
“The strategies implemented by each Campaign took a vastly different approach in spreading their message.
It’s clear the No camp distributed their ads and money amongst several accounts creating a larger amount of traction to filtered Facebook ‘communities,
The lead No Campaigners ‘Advance’ ran the Facebook accounts ‘Fair Australia’ ‘Not Enough’ and ‘Referendum news’. Each one was clearly designed to target different generations.
The Yes Campaign on the other hand are using their one ‘Facebook account Yes23' to rely on getting their message across” she said.
In David Garcia’s ‘Influence of Facebook algorithms political polarization tested 2023’, Garcia explains that Social media's algorithms may contribute to polarising content to politically like-minded sources. This can then lead to "echo chambers" and "filter bubbles," where individuals are exposed to a narrower range of information than they might encounter otherwise.
On top of this, paid ads were distributed to millions of people for both the Yes and No Campaigns, often targeting one location or one demographic.
“The No Campaign has successfully tapped into the algorithms of TikTok”
– Grace Lane
While there are claims that the Labor party and the Albanese government paid exuberant amounts of money to distribute Yes Campaign material, a study in The Guardian found otherwise, that the Coalition had spent over 4 times ($175.2k) the amount than that ($39.2k) of the Labor Party.
Student Nurse and social media user Grace Lane says she feels proud of herself and “lucky” to have done her own research through an array of resources.
“Majority of the Campaign material I’m consuming, has been coming up on my TikTok, and it’s all No Campaign stuff. Lots of emotive and negative words are associated with The Voice[To Parliament] by the No Campaign, which definitely makes me feel guilty and question my vote. The No Campaign has successfully tapped into the algorithms of TikTok. Luckily, I’ve been educating myself through numerous sources on the issue”, she said.
Macchia explains the 'No Vote' content is a simple marketing strategy – the more controversial, the more traction it’s going to get. Macchia further makes the point that digital users and consumers play a very active role in circulating the content, and whether users are aware of this or not is another question.
“The No Campaign will post something super controversial or provocative and an army of Yes Campaigners will comment on it, making sure the yes side doesn’t go unheard - but, at the end of the day, its just adding fuel to the No Campaign content and further spreading it to more and more users, which is exactly what it has been designed to do”, she said.
For No voter Jack Gardner*, there hasn’t been enough clarity about what the advisory body would do and whether it would be beneficial at all.
“The controversy that is surrounding this constitutional amendment has made me feel like there will be a better way to go about recognising our First Nations people”, he said.
Marketing strategist Toby Ralph further adds that the No Campaign isn’t successful, ‘both are dreadful’. Ralph comments that the Yes Campaign “assumed a monopoly on decency” and that “they have smart campaigners who are treating Australians like idiots”.
But for Eddie Synot, a Wemba Wemba man, Constitutional lawyer and teacher at the Indigenous Law Centre at the University of NSW, the referendum has been a simple question, and it wasn’t being asked by politicians.
“The Voice comes from the Uluru statement from the heart. The concept of a Voice isn’t new we can go back just about every generation and see a call for a Voice or a similar type of body, Going back all the way to federation in 1901, in our history there has been a couple of constitutional conventions and ideas about constitutional reform for Indigenous people, but our Community has never had the opportunity to talk about it ourself, it’s always been handpicked bodies or experts telling us what to do”, he said.
Synot further talks about in his article “The Voice: What is it, where did it come from, and what can it achieve?, 2023” that the Voice is an important stepping stone towards other key reforms – for instance Treaty, which was requested by The Uluru Statement From The Heart, but in the sequence of Voice, Treaty, Truth. Synot explains this sequence was given ‘significant thought’ for the reason that,
“Voice precedes Treaty because fair, modern treaty negotiations require first the establishment of a representative Indigenous body to negotiate the rules of the game with the state. It can’t be left to the state alone, and the state must have a group of people with whom to negotiate”, he said.
Unfortunately for Synot and other Yes Campaigners, this message was lost in the midst of politics, propaganda, social media and fear. Researcher Celeste Liddle pointing out that what people are voting on has dwindled down to whether or not Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were worthy of recognition or respect.
“To me, it's been a very dangerous debate and it's been very demoralising”, she said.
For First Nations people, this time has been overwhelmingly hard. For Gamilaroi woman Sophie Brennan the past few months has had a huge impact on her mental health.
'It’s been hard because I’ve been in a constant mind battle of wanting to do the right thing. And I think to myself, the right thing for who?’
As a proud Indigenous woman, I believe that my people deserve an advisory body in the constitution – to ensure thought-out decisions are made for us, based off lived experiences from our people.
We can see the detrimental impact of failed policies and legislations. Hopefully this body would hold the government accountable for flippant policies and maybe that’s why half of the government are opposing it?
Let’s not forget Peter Dutton boycotted Kevin Rudd’s formal Apology to the Stolen Generation of First Nations people”, she said.
The Referendum has been and gone and the vote was No. This was Australia’s first referendum with a large social media presence. A litmus test of what campaigning would now look like – if we ever have another referendum in our lifetime…
Although the referendum is over, the inequalities faced by First Nations people is still very much present. Clause 15 in the Closing The Gap agreement states the central objective is:
‘to overcome the entrenched inequality faced by too many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people so that their life outcomes are equal to all Australians’
So, my final words are this.
If Australia does not believe that an advisory body 'enshrined in the constitution' is going to help make First Nations people’s lives equal to all Australians, then we must start urgently thinking of what would.
If this article has raised any concerns or distress please contact:
Lifeline - 13 11 14
Beyondblue - 1300 224 636
Mob Only
13YARN - 13 92 76
Yarning Safe ’N’ Strong - 1800 959 563
Brother to Brother - 1800 435 799 for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men.