by Kyra Hatzikosmidis
A week ago a screenshot flooded my newsfeed. Some of my Facebook friends took the liberty to share the truth behind Labor's intentions reintroducing the inheritance tax. The original post has over 5.9 thousand shares to date, which is a remarkable sign of Facebook users engaging in a political conversation.
Usually, I love seeing my newsfeed filled with political engagement. Whether the poster favours left or right I don't mind.
Except this time, this time I was angry. Over five thousand people had shared this easy to read, fear mongering post, completely unaware that not a single word they were spreading was accurate.
I left a comment on the post gently encouraging the sharer to conduct their own research before voting and spreading false information to their two thousand Facebook friends before I went on with my day. My comment received 4 likes and the sharer's post received 15. I didn't give it too much thought.
Forward to Saturday night a few hours after the polls had closed. I was at a gathering with friends I hardly see, and people I barely know. Once the small talk lulled, I nervously asked if anyone was interested in the election and while I was initially met with apathetic 'yeah kind of's' some questions and light discussion followed.
Everyone shared that climate change was their biggest concern. Awesome. One person questioned if the Greens were funded by Liberal. Concerning.
Then a few admitted that although they cared most about combating climate change and live animal exports, they ended up voting Liberal over Labor to avoid an inheritance tax. I instructed them to google 'Labor inheritance tax', resulting in them realising a little too late they voted against their ethics to avoid policies that didn't exist.
It's become increasingly more apparent how disengaged not only my network, but Australian's are with politics. For every person I know that is invested, interested and aware there are people I know who are so disengaged they thought Pauline Hanson's 'One Nation' Party aimed to unify all Australian's as one (I wish I were making this up).
Social media has had a prominent role in sharing campaign information, whether it be completely accurate or not while traditional media legitimised said information, for those who are bothered to research.
But what happens when thousands of people can't be stuffed getting off Facebook and fact-checking what they read? Or even simpler, quickly researching who their votes go to before numbering 1 to 6.
It seems a lot of us are aware of fake news, how it circulates and the poisonous trail of delusion it leaves behind while some of us, it seems, don't even know fake news exists.
And how exactly are we to get our disengaged network to engage? ABC Podcast' Party Talk' episode 'Election Bonus: Less than a week and counting' discussed how the Liberal party forgot to engage youth, and while I agreed at the time, I now realise the Coalition and their support parties did a pretty good job at it.
We all laughed at Clive Palmer and his 60 million dollar ad spend, and yet we all saw his campaign time and time again. Although he did not win a seat, he definitely ensured his message was heard and received via every single media platform out there.
Over the last few weeks my music listening on my drive home from work was interrupted every few songs on Soundcloud (a music streaming site dominated by live Dj sets) by a voice clip warning 'Labor is a tax we can't afford'. I also learnt that LGBQTI dating app Grindr was infiltrated with pro-Liberal ads.
Initially amused, I disregarded these attempts that the Coalition made to engage their least likely voters. I thought their approach was more annoying than effective.
What I did not realise was that by promoting on Soundcloud the Coalition targeted people who would otherwise be disengaged, forcing them to hear an ad about how the opposition could negatively impact them.
After all, we have compulsory voting, but that doesn't equal compulsory policy learning. The record enrolment of 96.8% of young voters was largely a result of the Same-Sex Marriage Plebiscite. But that is not to say that because these voters engaged with the same-sex marriage issue they would care about politics overall.
In hindsight, I wish I had made a status or at the very least an Instagram story addressing the fake news surrounding the 'inheritance tax'. I feel irresponsible for not sharing facts, the same way thousands who shared the fake news should. If I had taken a moment to post on my social media network, I would have been able to catch many of my climate- conscious or politically unaware friends who ultimately voted Liberal in fear of being taxed 40% of their families assets, before it was too late.
While my network and thousands of other eligible voters don't actively seek information before they vote, it's clear they read the fear mongering posts that appear on their newsfeed and listen to the un-skippable ads that interrupt their listening/watching.
If people are going to learn from their social media newsfeeds, then we are all responsible for taking part in conversation until the social media platforms step up to combat the unethical, misguiding and fake spread of information.
Single policy voters, confused voters and uneducated voters will always exist, and while I respect many people's motivations for voting differ from mine, I will certainly not think twice before sharing facts on social media again.
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