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Spearheading Cybersecurity and Influence Defense in the Pacific: A CERT Tonga Perspective

  • Writer: CRC
    CRC
  • 1 day ago
  • 2 min read
Cover image for a report titled "Pro-Palestine Mobilization and Digital Influence at Columbia University," featuring the Alma Mater statue with red paint.


Tonga's information ecosystem is unusually concentrated and physically fragile, making it an attractive target for great-power competition in the Pacific. The Kingdom relies on a single submarine fiber-optic cable for global connectivity — a vulnerability starkly exposed when the 2022 Hunga Tonga eruption severed it for five weeks, forcing the diaspora to become the country's de facto information relay. Today, roughly 58.5% of Tonga's 104,000 residents are online, and of those, social media usage is almost entirely Facebook-driven (66.5% of the population), while X/Twitter has collapsed to under 1,900 users. This Facebook-first, X-absent media sphere means platform monitoring for influence operations must focus overwhelmingly on Meta properties.


Compounding this concentration is a diaspora nearly twice the size of Tonga's resident population, spread across New Zealand, the US, and Australia, and connected to home primarily through Facebook groups, Messenger, and diaspora-based outlets like Kaniva Tonga News. Remittances make up ~39% of GDP, and the diaspora has demonstrated real political leverage — from a 2025 voting-rights campaign to a 2024 backlash over a leaked pro-China document that forced domestic political consequences.


On the diplomatic-infrastructure front, the report traces how Tonga "hedges between China and the West": significant Belt and Road-linked debt to China's Export-Import Bank continues to constrain reconstruction, while the US, Australia, New Zealand, Germany/EU, and Japan have all stepped up counter-engagement — from deep-sea mineral partnerships to post-ransomware cyber assistance. While no large-scale coordinated influence campaign has been documented, prior incidents (deepfake audio, fake political letters, COVID conspiracy content) show Tonga's susceptibility to information manipulation, underscoring the case for proactive social-media monitoring and media-literacy resilience before a campaign — rather than after.



Author: Esau Tupou (Head of the Tonga Computer Emergency Response Team)


[Download PDF Here]



 
 
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