Russian Twitter trolls have targeted Australia’s democracy primarily through attempts to stoke anti-Islamic sentiment and have begun to advocate on behalf of Julian Assange, researchers have warned.

On Tuesday academics from the University of Canberra told a parliamentary inquiry that tweets identified by Twitter as belonging to an “organised influence operation” from Russian troll-farm the Internet Research Agency were playing on fears around Islam.

Michael Jensen, an associate of the News and Media Research Centre and senior fellow at the Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis, told the joint standing committee on electoral matters his analysis of the Russian tweets suggested there was “little evidence” of direct influence on Australian elections.

However, Russia-linked accounts seem “interested in amplifying social divisions, in particular distinctions between Muslims and the rest of the population” and they “emphasise links to terrorism extensively”, he said.

Jensen explained that amplifying “fears and anxieties make it easier to move people to new political identifications” because they help convince targets they can “no longer trust the institutions and political figures that have kept them safe in the past”.

Jensen noted that the accounts had “advocated strongly on behalf of Julian Assange asking for Australia’s intercession regarding his cause to help free him”.

He said this cause may become “more salient in the near future” after last week’s revelation that Assange – who is still in the Ecuadorean embassy in London – is under sealed indictment in the United States.

Twitter accounts of Russian trolls are advocating ‘strongly on behalf of Julian Assange asking for Australia’s intercession regarding his cause to help free him’, experts say. Photograph: Frank Augstein/AP

Jensen said that despite the focus on the spread of misinformation and fake news, the “truth or falsity of a statement is often incidental to its utility in an influence operation”.

Conjecture, leaked information and statements that are “true in and of themselves or not demonstrably false” can be used to amplify fears and anxieties regardless of their accuracy, making fact-checking “likely inadequate” as a solution to foreign influence operations, he said.

Jensen said the day on which the Internet Research Agency-linked accounts were most active was 8 February 2017 on which they participated in the #makeTVshowsAussie conversation on Twitter.

Jensen said the accounts “showed an ability to use Australian slang terms” which was commonly associated with “traditional spy-craft practices” to first establish a connection with an audience on “non-political grounds then slowly move them to adopt political positions over time”.

“Even within that game I saw experimentation where they would move from that game to statements about Muslims being dangerous.”

Jensen said the Twitter accounts would “seize on any evidence they can find”, looking for people who make statements of that type and retweeting them to amplify their influence.

Social media reactions can form the basis of articles in news sources like Russia Today or other “grey media sources”, a form of “information laundering” that can “create the illusion of credibility for particular claims” and add to a growing sense that a social attitude or belief is widely accepted.

Labor’s deputy chair of the committee, Andrew Giles, said the evidence of Russian-linked Twitter accounts fomenting anxiety against Muslims was “of great concern to me”.

He said the evidence was concerning “at a couple of levels” because it shows the focus on social media is “too narrow” and “simply looking at the accuracy” of statements would not be enough to deal with the problem.

Jensen agreed that combating foreign influence “likely requires a whole-of-government or a whole-of-society approach”.

The the joint standing committee on electoral matters is examining the need to combat cyber interference in elections as part of its inquiry into the 2016 election.

In its submission to the committee, Twitter said that in October 2017 it banned advertising from all accounts owned by Russia Today and Sputnik because of the US intelligence community’s conclusion they attempted to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election.

Twitter said it had identified and suspended “a number of accounts” potentially connected to the Internet Research Agency and identified and suspended a further 1,062 accounts associated with the IRA.

Facebook did not address the issue of Russian interference in its submission, but said it had “expanded [its] ability to find and eliminate information operations” in which “sophisticated threat actors run coordinated efforts to mislead and manipulate the public”.