A divisive wave of disinformation

In late October, I was in a hotel in Alberta, doom-scrolling social media when a video posted by former Alberta deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk appeared on my Facebook feed.

He and I have never met, but his post caught my attention. It revealed that a petition started by his organization, Forever Canadian, had blown past its initial target of 300,000 signatures and, as of that date, had garnered 456,365 signatures.

The petition asked “Do you agree that Alberta should remain in Canada?” And Albertans answered in spades. They want nothing to do with separatism. They want their province to stay in Canada.

That was good news to me, as it appeared to be a powerful repudiation of the so-called Alberta separatism movement we hear so much about. That’s why I shared the Lukaszuk video on my Facebook page.

Within a couple of hours, however, more than a couple dozen people left comments on my Facebook page in response to the Lukaszuk video, and those comments were all negative. Some attacked Lukaszuk, others attacked me, and almost all of them attacked Canada and expressed support for Alberta independence.

The strange part was that I didn’t know any of the people who had left those comments, yet they somehow saw my post on Facebook and felt compelled to respond to it. Even more strange was the fact that all of those accounts had been created around the same time in 2022, and none of them had posted anything before that day.

They appear to have been bots — fake accounts bent on supporting Alberta independence and causing harm to Canada.

Fast-forward to last Sunday. Late in the afternoon, I shared a tweet by the “World of Statistics” X account, which revealed that, according to WorldAtlas, Canada is the world’s “most loved” nation. I shared that on my Facebook account, describing it as “further evidence that Canada isn’t broken.”

A few hours later, I shared another tweet from that same X account, which disclosed that, according to U.S. News and World Report, Canada is also the world’s friendliest country. I also shared that on my Facebook account, saying it was “even more evidence that Canada is not broken.”

Neither of those posts received much of a response on my Facebook account. The posts were somehow shared via my Threads account, however, and the response was similar to the reaction I received to the post of the Lukaszuk video.

One response said “Working full time can barely get by. Good job f—ing Libtards.” Another said “The socialist Republic of Chinada.”

Yet another response — posted twice — said “Oh for f–ks sake. Please. This means nothing, Canada is a money laundering cesspool with more and more foreign gangs taking hold.”

Each of the posts were from accounts that had few followers and, in most cases, had posted few messages. That last quote was from an account that had been created in 2023, yet had posted just one message. Again, it appears that bots were attempting to drown out good news about Canada.

I see this type of thing happening more and more frequently — posts on various social media accounts that disparage Canada and promote division in our nation — and I suspect you are seeing more of it, too.

The reality is that there are those outside our borders who appear determined to harm Canada by spreading disinformation about our country and sowing division among our citizens — and one of the key ways in which they are seeking to accomplish that goal is through bots, algorithms and fake AI videos on various social media platforms.

They are seeking to take advantage of the fact that many Canadians are less informed about what is happening in our nation than they were a decade ago. Our friends and neighbours are increasingly looking to social media for their news, and that news is often false or “torqued” to create both an inaccurate perception and misguided reaction.

That makes all of us vulnerable. It causes disagreements based on “fake facts.” It causes many of us to forget how great we have it here in Canada.

How do we address this problem? By seeing the situation for what it is, and we take steps to stop it. We reduce our reliance on social media for news, and instead rely more on established news organizations that have high journalistic standards and a long history of accurate reporting.

Doing that will help to reduce the persuasive power of disinformation, but we can go further. We can stand up to fake facts on our social media accounts and among those we know. That includes difficult, fact-based conversations with friends and family members who have fallen down the “rabbit hole.”

Many of us have family members who have swallowed the MAGA propaganda and other dangerous disinformation on everything from health care to race relations. We owe it to them, and to our nation, to set the record straight with verifiable facts.

We are nowhere near as divided as we seem, but determined foreign forces are using technology to cause and worsen division among us. It’s a dangerous situation, but the problem isn’t going to fix itself.

We cannot remain passive to the threat. It’s time for all of us to stand up and confront the lies about our nation, and those who spread them.

Keep those elbows up, Canada. Our future depends on it.