About six in 10 Australians, or 59%, agree TikTok and WeChat should be banned nationwide, according to an upcoming UTS poll. This figure is very close to the result in the 2023 poll, where 61% of respondents expressed the same view, which was, in turn, up from 47% in 2022.
The poll also shows that older Australians (66% of respondents aged 55 or over) tend to prefer a nationwide ban on these two apps. More conservative respondents — those who voted for the Liberal-National Coalition in the 2022 and 2019 federal elections, and who nominated the Coalition as best placed to handle Australia’s China policy — have also been consistently in favour of a ban.
But if TikTok and WeChat hadn’t been clumped together in the polling question, would respondents have answered differently? And perhaps more importantly, do most Australians understand the differences and similarities between them?
What the apps have in common
TikTok and WeChat are Chinese apps.
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