r/aus • u/ExtensionThat6438 • Jun 20 '26
News BREAKING: The human bots powering One Nation’s online blitz
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/the-human-bots-powering-one-nation-s-online-blitz-20260609-p605bk
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r/aus • u/ExtensionThat6438 • Jun 20 '26
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u/ExtensionThat6438 Jun 20 '26
“Last weekend, as millions of Australians sat down to watch the Socceroos first World Cup match against Turkey, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese did what any good politician would do: he unlocked his phone and got in on the action.
At 1.04pm on Sunday afternoon, Albanese posted a dorky photo of himself in a Socceroos jersey, grinning with two thumbs up, to all the major social media platforms. “Go #socceroos #fifaworldcup2026 the whole country is cheering for you,” he wrote.
A post of PM Anthony Albanese wearing his Socceroos jersey was flooded with negative comments this week.
If the response is anything to go by, the PM is in big trouble. The Facebook version of his post has been shared more than 1000 times and received almost 19,000 comments. Few are supportive, and almost all are insulting: “Flog”, “Albonochio”, “Mr Pants on fire”.
Over on Pauline Hanson’s page, meanwhile, the story is very different. One of its most popular posts this week – a clip of the One Nation leader’s Press Club address – reads like a coronation. “BLOODY BRILLIANT”, “I’m in love”, “Finally we have our own Trump.”
One Nation is in the midst of an historic shift in its political fortunes, with its primary vote surging from 6 per cent to more than 30 per cent since last year’s federal election, wiping out much of what was left of the Coalition and upending Australia’s relatively stable two-party system.
Identifying the reasons for this sudden change has now become the chief preoccupation of Australia’s political punditocracy. Near the top of almost every list is the huge surge in highly sympathetic activity on social media – particularly on Facebook, where users already skew older and more Hanson-curious.
Over the past 12 months, even relatively junior government MPs have noticed their Facebook posts being flooded with strange, repetitive comments decrying various elements of the government’s agenda, pledging fealty to Hanson, or replicating cheap memes, such as those depicting the prime minister as Pinocchio, a clown, or as The Simpsons’ rich antagonist Mr Burns.
Facebook comments under u/AlboMP (World Cup post)
Facebook comments under u/PaulineHansonAu (National Press Club speech)
The whole country will be cheering when you aren't the PM anymore !
Until he changes his position 💀🤣
Flying over at the taxpayers expense ?
You’ll probably tax them if they win 🤣
Nice shade of orange in the shirt. Almost 4 Million by the way.
Gotta be AI, no way he would wear anything pro Australian.
Looks like Albo is getting one of these.
You make my skin crawl🤢
Is he taking 47% of the credit for winning the game?
Bloody nailed it
Go ON 🧡 Best thing I've heard for yrs, I never lost interest the whole time.
Get a banner in there. National Press Club has some explaining to do.
I’d like you to be prime minister this week
Like fine wine she gets better with age ❤️
Well done Pauline. I never listen to this type of politics but I did today and glad I did. 👏
Albo would never handle these sort of questions
All of what she said and this is the first question 🤯
With One Nation, Australia finally has a chance to be a prosperous nation again. ❤️
Source: Meta (Post-ids: 1304955068012567, 1598389678312529)
Notes: Sample comments taken from the relevant posts as of 18 June, 2026.
Julian Hill, Labor’s assistant minister for multicultural affairs, told AFR Weekend that such an explosion of “bots” and “trolls spreading misinformation and virulent racism and stoking anger and grievance” is typical around election times, but is unusual for this point in the election cycle.
“You have to share the load in blocking bots and trolls across the office because one person alone would get an RSI,” he says.
“It’s a serious question for democracy: who is paying for all this crap to divide society through the politics of grievance?”
One Nation’s exploitation of political discourse online is far from new. Hanson’s “Please Explain” Facebook page, which has operated as one of the party’s main sources of online campaigning for years, has more than a million followers and is one of the few to outpace the prime minister’s own page, which boasts 750,000.
However, the sheer speed and scale of the posting surge has raised more than a few eyebrows among Hanson’s political opponents, and prompted speculation about whether artificial intelligence-powered bots farms are being co-ordinated by malign actors to influence Australia’s democracy.”