Name: How is Canada confronting the threats of misinformation
Uploaded: 2025-11-04T21:17:50.740Z
Duration: 3 min 45 s
Description: Brian McQuinn, the co-director of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence, Data and Conflict, joined The Morning Edition to talk about the changes to our information ecosystem and how Canada is adjusting.

Brian McQuinn, the co-director of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence, Data and Conflict, joined The Morning Edition to talk about the changes to our information ecosystem and how Canada is adjusting.

Ottawa

Canada is facing increasing challenges from misinformation and disinformation, much of which is amplified by foreign actors through social media platforms. Experts note that this shift in the information ecosystem is influencing democratic processes, public discussions, and the overall perception of reality among Canadians.

Research indicates that foreign campaigns, particularly those linked to Russian interests, have significantly engaged and mobilized far left and far right communities in Canada. These groups have generated far more content and engagement than official political representatives, underscoring the substantial impact of coordinated disinformation efforts.

How is Canada confronting the threats of misinformation

You know, our information ecosystem is changing and we're getting more of our information, you know, from social media, um, even, you know, I've got a TV monitor in here and I was not aware that Dick Cheney passed away, as you heard in my surprise in the last segment. Um, but on a serious note, this is affecting our democracy. This is affecting how people go out and vote, how they have discussions with their family and friends. So how do we deal with that threat knowing that the information that we used to get is, is much different than we get now? That is a really complicated question. Um, there's basically quite a few things that we can do, but I think it's always good to take a step back and say, what's the problem? Um, we often hear about polarization and the sort of idea that society is inherently getting more polarized, where the people who used to disagree with us are no longer people who we see the world differently as, but as people who we hate or who are, you know, the fact that they exist in the country is sort of an existential threat. Those kinds of ideas are not simply organic within Canada. And we always have to take a step back and say, what countries are interested in amplifying conflict within the country? Because as we've found out with the Ukraine war, actually invading a country using military tactics is really messy and very uncertain, but pumping a lot of really negative, um, influence campaigns into a country allows a country to tear itself apart and therefore you don't have to use, you know, and I think the United States is a really good example of that. Um, and so whenever we hear about polarization, whenever you see things online that are these kind of incredibly amped up, it often is other people outside of the country amplifying those, that those differences. And so there's a lot that we can do. One, and some of our research, and we, we sort of looked at this stuff internationally, we looked at it in Canada and we looked at it in Saskatchewan. Um, but one of the things that you can always have to remember is what am I receiving from where? And when I click things through, I am contributing that. And you actually are the most important part because when we looked at the research, it's actually usually a very small number of channels that find ways of putting things into the sort of organic communities because robots and stuff, they don't have, they have other robots as friends. They don't have actual human beings. Right. And so what you really have to do is you have to kind of trick normal human beings into sending this information to their community because guess what, their community will believe it because they're sending it. And so you, you create a certain amount of legitimacy and authenticity by clicking through. And so being really careful what you click through and really being clear on where it comes from is one of the most important things we can do at, at an individual level. What, uh, as far as education goes, how do we help each other and help the public understand that some of these campaigns are being targeted at Canadians, at Americans, from foreign actors? So one of the things that we looked at was, um, for the sort of six months before the full scale invasion of, of Ukraine to see how much, um, basically disinformation, how much sort of Russian influence campaign was, was hitting Canadians, not the world, but Canadians specifically. And because we hear a lot about that, you know, it's not, foreign influence isn't a huge part of, of what's going on. And actually that's not true. Um, it may not change the sort of election outcome of a particular area, but it is definitely transforming how people see the world. And so we were able to show that the community and the sort of weaponization of the far left and the far right in Canada was quite a significant community, one of the most active political communities. And we compared that to members of parliament and this sort of far left, far right, that was focused on sort of Russian disinformation got four times more engagement and produced 27 times more content than all of our MPs put together and the community that they're part of. And so it does have a fairly significant effect.

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