Vietnamese-Run Facebook Pages Target Australia with AI-Generated Political Disinformation

SYDNEY – A network of Facebook pages managed from Vietnam is exploiting Australia’s increasingly polarized political landscape by promoting AI-generated articles containing false information. What began as seemingly innocent sports fan accounts have evolved into sophisticated purveyors of political misinformation designed to generate profit through ad revenue.

The pages, with names like “Swimming Secrets” and “Tennis Triumph,” initially appeared in mid-2025 as fan accounts posting updates about athletes. However, these posts often contained fabricated claims, such as Australian swimmer Mollie O’Callaghan supposedly threatening to boycott the Olympics if transgender athletes were allowed to compete.

AFP has identified more than a dozen sports and human interest pages promoting content that blends actual news with fabrications. Some posts have garnered thousands of shares, amplifying their reach across Australian social media users.

These accounts, operated by users in Vietnam and amassing tens of thousands of followers, have now pivoted to focus primarily on Australian national politics. They direct users to websites filled with AI-generated articles surrounded by advertisements—the apparent profit engine behind the operation.

“The websites display almost industrial level forms of misinformation,” said open-source intelligence analyst Giano Libot. “It’s designed for the algorithm in search engines to pick up.” Libot added that the lack of regulatory frameworks in Southeast Asia has enabled such operations to flourish.

After AFP contacted Meta, the parent company of Facebook, 13 pages were removed in March for violating site policies. However, this network represents just the latest in a pattern of Vietnamese-based disinformation campaigns. Vietnam’s low labor and electricity costs have fostered a thriving industry of social media click farming operations.

A previous AFP investigation in 2025 uncovered more than 30 baseball-themed pages, predominantly operated from Vietnam, that were publishing false political claims ahead of the World Series. Similar disinformation campaigns targeting Dutch politicians have also been identified and debunked by AFP fact-checkers.

Experts suggest that Australia’s growing political polarization makes it particularly vulnerable to such campaigns. “Often the purpose of disinformation is not to benefit a particular party, but to destabilize communities and create an era of distrust,” explained Jeannie Paterson, co-director of the University of Melbourne’s Centre of AI and Digital Ethics. “Australia is an ideal place at the moment for this sort of destabilization exercise.”

The pages have exploited recent political tensions, including internal conflicts within Australia’s opposition coalition and the rising prominence of Pauline Hanson’s far-right One Nation party. One widely circulated false claim alleged that Hanson had launched a US$12 million lawsuit against Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Labor Party.

Facebook transparency data revealed these pages were managed by several administrators in Vietnam, despite listing contact information associated with American hotels and casinos. An analysis using multiple AI detection tools—including one co-developed by AFP—found the articles were “likely machine-generated.”

A One Nation spokesperson condemned the pages as “a clear case of foreign interference in domestic Australian politics.” Prime Minister Albanese’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

While Australia’s next federal election isn’t until 2028, state-level elections are approaching in Victoria this November and in New South Wales in 2027. According to Ika Trijsburg of Australian National University, the proliferation of polarizing content online “can sway electoral behavior” particularly at the local level, “because it’s much less entrenched.”

Vietnam enacted legislation in March regulating artificial intelligence—becoming the first Southeast Asian country to do so. The law requires clear labeling of AI-generated content and applies to developers, providers, and deployers of the technology, regardless of whether they are Vietnamese organizations or foreign entities operating within the country.

Despite these regulatory efforts, cybersecurity expert Shaanan Cohney from the University of Melbourne warns that the sophistication of disinformation campaigns continues to evolve. “There is a leveling-up of the skills in the disinformation world, which makes it a cat-and-mouse game,” Cohney said. “Even if things were easy to detect before, it gets harder to bring down these networks.”

The problem appears to be persistent. In mid-February, a new Facebook page called “AU News Today” emerged, publishing Australian political content similar to the pages identified by AFP. An investigation by the Australian Associated Press discovered another Vietnam-based network of accounts disguised as news outlets that remained active well into March, suggesting this challenge is far from resolved.