To the detriment of liberal democracy, governments have struggled to prevent the exploitation of personal data for voter manipulation in the digital era. Laws pertaining to political microtargeting are often piecemeal and tend to derive from a combination of laws on electoral advertising and privacy. Evidence indicates that this approach is insufficient to curtail microtargeting. However, little is known about the regulation of microtargeting outside of the European and US contexts within which the bulk of anti-microtargeting research has been undertaken. Accordingly, this paper aims to shed light on the preparedness of the law in Australia and New Zealand to mitigate the potential harms of political microtargeting. A comparative analysis of legislation pertaining to microtargeting is therefore undertaken using a blended approach of comparative law and content analysis. This paper: (1) identifies current legislation relevant to microtargeting in Australia and New Zealand; (2) assesses patterns of similarity and difference between each country's laws in relation to microtargeting; and (3) evaluates the preparedness of current legislation to curtail microtargeting in an evolving social media landscape. It finds that in both countries, legislation is sufficiently robust to mitigate microtargeting in some limited circumstances, but a cohesive regulatory approach is needed to constrain the most insidious microtargeting operations.

中文翻译：

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减少微观目标：澳大利亚和新西兰的政治微观目标法

在数字时代，各国政府一直在努力防止利用个人数据来操纵选民，这对自由民主造成了损害。与政治微观目标相关的法律通常是零碎的，并且往往源自选举广告和隐私法律的结合。证据表明这种方法不足以减少微目标。然而，在欧洲和美国以外的地区，人们对微目标的监管知之甚少，而欧洲和美国的大部分反微目标研究都是在这些国家进行的。因此，本文旨在阐明澳大利亚和新西兰为减轻政治微观目标的潜在危害而制定的法律准备情况。因此，采用比较法和内容分析的混合方法对有关微观目标的立法进行比较分析。本文：(1) 确定了澳大利亚和新西兰与微目标相关的现行立法；(2) 评估每个国家与微目标相关的法律之间的相似性和差异模式；(3) 评估当前立法在不断变化的社交媒体环境中减少微观目标的准备情况。报告发现，在这两个国家，立法都足够健全，可以在某些有限的情况下减轻微观目标的影响，但需要采取一致的监管方法来限制最阴险的微观目标操作。