This minor incident was likely caused by a single entity or actor using a set of newly created bot accounts with posts composed by either a low-quality (cheap) or poorly prompted generative Large Language Models (often described generically as AI) [Incident Update (IU) 6]. This network of bots consistently posts about recent news topics and are only incidentally interested in Canada or Canadian politics content [IU6].

In this final update on the bot incident related to Pierre Poilievre’s rally in Kirkland Lake, we aim to provide additional context about bot activity in the Canadian information ecosystem. Specifically, we wanted to know: 1) the extent to which Large Language Models (LLMs) were used in combination with bot profiles to produce the messages; 2) how many people saw these messages; 3) how blame attribution was a major part of the subsequent discussion; and 4) what other messages the bots produced.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's rally in Kirkland Lake on July 31st drew subsequent attention from bot posts on 𝕏 praising the event with variations of similar phrasing. To learn more about public opinion of the event, and of how online bot activity interacts with democracy in Canada, we fielded a survey of 1437 Canadians from August 16th to 21st. The margin of error for a comparable probability-based random sample of the same size is +/-2.59%, 19 times out of 20.

While we continue to study the bot incident related to Pierre Poilievre’s rally in Kirkland Lake, we also aim to provide additional context about bot activity in the Canadian information ecosystem. Specifically, we wanted to know to what extent bots were present in commentary directed at other politicians, and how these bots tend to engage across politicians and platforms. To do so we examine potential inauthentic coordinated activity on the Facebook and 𝕏 accounts of Leader of the Official Opposition Pierre Poilievre and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to better understand what bot activity looks like in regards to prominent Canadian politicians. 

To try and better understand how the Kirkland Lake bot incident might have happened, we investigated whether free generative AI tools like ChatGPT or Co-Pilot could be used to deliver this type of attack. We wanted to see if there are any safeguards in place to prevent commercial AI tools from being used in cases like this. We show almost all large free commercial AIs are not prepared to mitigate this kind of election interference.

Beyond trying to better understand the incident, we turn our attention to the impacts. Specifically, the topic of this update explores the impact on conversation. How did news outlets talk about the story? What voices were loudest in the conversation? How (if so) did the dialogue compare between partisan voices? How did engagement with the bots compare to the event itself? What did people say about it?

Did a single person create the suspected bot attack in which hundreds of users posted about the Conservatives’ rally in Kirkland Lake, Ontario?