Political ads will be labelled, and advertisers must prove they are in Australia under new rules Twitter is rolling out to fight election interference.

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The move follows electoral law changes made in 2018, under which political ads on social media are required to disclose who bankrolled them.

"In the 2016 US presidential election, we found ways that our platform was being manipulated that we previously didn't know about," said Kara Hinesley, Twitter's public policy boss for Australia and New Zealand.

"Verifying identity and verifying addresses is one of the key things we can do to ensure organisations that are based in the country are the ones that are actually serving political ads."

Paid advertising on social media was just one part of Russia's misinformation campaign targeting American voters. Its Internet Research Agency (IRA) went to great lengths to make its Twitter accounts appear local, reports suggest, including registering them from US IP addresses.

In addition to stamps on election ads indicating who authorised them, Twitter will also reveal specific data — billing information, ad spend, demographic targeting information and impressions per tweet — for any promoted political tweets from the past seven days.

First implemented in the United States, the advertising restrictions will come into place the week of March 11.

A promoted tweet on Twitter will now indicate if it's a political ad. ( Supplied: Twitter )

The 2016 aftermath

After the 2016 US election, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey told Congress his company was "unprepared and ill-equipped" to deal with the malicious spread of misinformation on the platform.

A report from cybersecurity firm New Knowledge estimated the IRA created a collection of around 3,841 persona accounts on Twitter.

It highlighted how human-operated accounts on the platform, rather than paid-for posts, functioned across the political spectrum.

"The personas were spontaneous and responsive, engaging with real users (famous influencers and media as well as regular people), participating in real-time conversations, creating polls, and playing hashtag games," the researchers found.

"They were designed to influence individuals and to shape narratives."

For this reason, Andrew Hughes, a political marketing expert at the Australian National University, said better ad transparency from Twitter was a good step, but would not solve a complex problem.

"It doesn't look at the tweets themselves, which can be used to influence people, so the organic tweets," he said.

He is also concerned that while those running ads advocating for a candidate will need to be verified, ads from issues groups pushing a view on a particular topic are less restricted.

"Issue-based campaigns and advertising is going to be very critical here at the next election," Dr Hughes said.

While Twitter is considering concerns around issues-based ads rather those promoting a specific candidate, Ms Hinesley said the company did not think it should be "the arbiters of truth". Unless a post violates its terms of service, that is.

"People should, through their right to political communication, be able to talk about issues that are near and dear to them," she said.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has called his company "unprepared and ill-equipped" for online misinformation. ( AP: Jose Luis Magana )

The hacking threat

After a high-profile cyber attack targeted at Australia's major political parties was revealed this week, concerns about the integrity of the upcoming federal election are especially heightened.

In advance of the 2016 US election, the Democratic National Committee was compromised and hackers gained access to emails and other data that was later released online.

Ms Hinesley said if stolen information of a similar nature was used on Twitter in future, the company would take action.

"Typically, with these sort of hacks, one of the major concerns following it is the distribution of materials obtained," she said.

"We have updated our policies last year to be more aggressive on this point, and have moved very rapidly … to remove content [obtained] through hacks if it does show up on the platform."

Facebook told the ABC it would have more to announce about steps it is taking to fight political interference once the election is called.

The social media giant has also introduced authorisation requirements around political advertising in the United States.

An Australian Electoral Commission spokesperson said it had held "productive meetings" with Facebook, Twitter and Google during the electoral cycle, including discussions about the new authorisation requirements.

Because social media ads are not always publicly visible, the AEC said it would depend on complaints about ads that are not following electoral rules.