Who controls the story?

Influencers, illusions and information integrity | Issue 17/2025

In recent weeks, the rise of influencer tourism in Afghanistan attracted Media Watch attention. It reminded me of the 'glossy' posts from North Korea that spammed my Instagram and YouTube feed last year.

In 2024, North Korea briefly opened its borders to Russian influencers, and earlier this year, to visitors from the UK, Canada, France, and Germany. But the experiment quickly backfired. 'Throwing off the careful rhythm' of official tours, influencers posed uncomfortable questions, filmed in non-designated places, and disrupted the carefully curated image Pyongyang aimed to project.

The Taliban seem to be taking notes and executing a more calculated strategy. Dr. Ayesha Jehangir, UNSW Lecturer in Journalism and Communication, stresses that through ‘special deal’ tours and direct recruitment online, the Taliban deliberately target influencers: ‘While Afghans in the country are going through one of the worst humanitarian crises and the systematic dismantling of social justice, Western influencers, including some women, are afforded special privileges such as security, access to restricted sites, and freedom of movement that ordinary Afghans do not have. These influencers are co-opted to whitewash the Taliban atrocities, depoliticize the regime’s repression, and spread misinformation about the harsh realities of living in Afghanistan, especially as a woman. They reduce Afghans to consumable “content” for foreign audiences, appropriating their culture and presenting it through a problematic Western gaze.’ CMT will continue watching this space.

In other news, CMT has written two submissions this month. Our submission to the Senate Select Committee inquiry into 'Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy' emphasised the importance of a broad-based accountability framework for digital platforms, greater attention to the spread of misinformation through traditional and online news sources, and efforts to improve scientific, information, and media literacy among the public. The other submission was on the Productivity Commission Interim Report 2025 – based on our recent Gen AI and Journalism report – and highlighted the failure to account for widespread unauthorised use of journalistic content by Gen AI developers, warning that a proposed text and data mining exception to our copyright law might harm public interest journalism; and called for holistic policy development to protect intellectual property and the sustainability of creative industries.

In this newsletter, Sacha examines the issue of privacy in light of the Productivity Commission’s Interim Report on data and digital technology. Michael surveys recent tensions between government information practices, media freedoms, and the public’s right to know. And I explore the future of political satire after a series of interviews with political cartoonists.

Read the newsletter here.

References: 

Attard, M., Davis, M., D’Souza, M. and Markus, T. 2025 Gen AI and Journalism: Towards common principles. Centre for Media Transition, University of Technology Sydney, Australia, cmt.uts.edu.au. https://doi.org.10.6084/m9.figshare.29818829 

CMT. (2025). Senate Select Committee on Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy. https://www.uts.edu.au/research/centres/centre-media-transition/centre-contributions-policy 

CMT. (2025). Submission to Productivity Commission: Harnessing Data & Digital Technology. https://www.uts.edu.au/research/centres/centre-media-transition/centre-contributions-policy

Garfinkel, I. (2025). Un-believable! The Western influencers telling the world how wonderful North Korea is (maybe someone should tell them Kim Jong Un executes people who try to leave). Daily Mail. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15100757/Un-believable-Western-influencers-telling-world-wonderful-North-Korea-maybe-tell-Kim-Jong-executes-people-try-leave.html 

Jezik, S. (2025). North Korea invited Western influencers. Now it has closed its borders again. What happened? Deseret News. https://www.deseret.com/politics/2025/05/20/north-korea-closes-borders-to-influencers-why/ 

Media Watch. (2025). Taliban Tourism. https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/episodes/influencers/105776236