TORONTO – Ever since media revelations and indictments were released alleging huge Russian social media campaigns to disrupt the 2016 U.S. federal election, Canadians have been worried there will be attempted foreign interference in elections here.
But a journalist told an Internet governance conference in Toronto on Wednesday we should look within our borders for sources of what’s come to be known as fake news. (Ed note: We like the word “lies” better, but fake news has become the go-to descriptor.)
"There are lots of examples of domestic actors inciting, creating discourse and divisiveness through the platforms that could do far more damage than a Russian bot or Macedonian bot could do," David Skok, editor in chief of The Logic, told a panel on disinformation at the Canadian Internet Governance Forum.
One example he gave was a recent U.K. study that suggested the biggest influences on opinion during the recent Brexit referendum were two tweets from British politician Nigel Farage. "A lot of this (misinformation) is locally driven," Skok argued.
In Canada, he continued, there are groups creating divisive social media campaigns on immigration because its is a hot button issue. "We've seen in some of the reporting we do [a] crisis communications firm creating bot accounts or creating fake accounts that attack our reporters, that attack us, that question our credibility," he said.
"Don't be fooled into thinking this is only foreign actors. Your local politicians and campaign staff and crisis communications firms are doing this more than foreign actors are."
On the other hand, Kevin Chan, Facebook Canada's director of public policy, said he hasn't seen yet what he called the "co-ordinated inauthentic behaviour" here that Facebook saw in the U.S., with fake accounts. However, Facebook Canada is watching.
Chan said the company here has a cross-functional team (with legal, cyber security, threat intelligence and others) to ensure the platform isn't abused during elections.
Facebook uses the Agence France Press news agency as a fact checker in Canada for content posted by users, and it partners with a firm to encourage digital literacy. During recent provincial and federal by-elections, it set up a hotline for political parties to call if they see problems. Globally, Facebook has chopped millions of what it considers to be fake accounts. (Still, problems persist.)
Still, Chan added, foreign actors are adapting. Facebook has seen instances of users organizing an event on the platform who thought a real person was helping them, when in fact it was someone outside their country. It's a "new kind of evolution in tactics we didn't see in 2016," he said.
On the other hand, Chan also said he worries about censoring controversial but what would otherwise be legitimate free speech. Towards that, Facebook hopes to create an independent advisory committee by the end of the year "to ensure speech is governed properly."
