Australian media today reported that Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s WeChat account has been renamed “New Life for Chinese Australians” and the description says this is a page that “provides information about life in Australia for the Chinese community”.
“Thank you for your continued interest in this public WeChat account. Scott Morrison, previous username here you guys follow, have transferred all activities and functions to this WeChat account”, wrote the Australian Prime Minister’s renamed account.
Chairman of the Security Committee and Australian Parliamentary Intelligence James Paterson believes that the hacking of Prime Minister’s WeChat account is related to China.
With more than a billion users globally, WeChat is one one of the most popular messaging apps in the world. Owned by parent company Tencent Holdings Ltd., the Chinese government regularly censors sensitive content.
“>Attempts to find Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s WeChat account on Monday morning (January 24) in China were unsuccessful.
Prime Minister Morrison’s office has tried to contact WeChat to regain control of his account with 76,000 followers, but has not received a response.
WeChat and the Chinese government were not immediately available for comment.
Many Australian politicians, including the leader of the opposition Labor Party, Anthony Albanese, also use WeChat to post messages in Chinese to reach out to Chinese voters.According to a 2016 survey, around 5.6% of Australians say they are of Chinese ancestry. 1 in 20 people.
Mr Paterson has called on Australian politicians to boycott this messaging service until the Prime Minister’s account is restored. who has the right to censor or control our public discussions,” he asserted.
In At that time, the leader of the Albanese opposition Party said he would have a discussion with the Prime Minister about this incident, saying that it could have “implications for national security”.
Prime Minister Morrison has opened a WeChat account since 2019. WeChat requires the account holder to present a Chinese ID card or link the account to a business registered in China, so Prime Minister Morrison’s office used an intermediary to register the account.
This intermediary has contact with an unidentified male Chinese citizen in Fujian province. However, the Australian Prime Minister’s office started having problems with the account a few months ago, when the access was interrupted.
Earlier this year, staff of the Prime Minister’s office Australian Prime Minister completely lost access to the account. The Australian side tried to contact Tencent to fix the problem, but was unsuccessful.
Ref: SCMP
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