ERROR
To best access our work, please return to one of the following pages:
Thank you!
OCTOBER 2024: EH OR NAY? CANADIANS WEIGH IN ON THE US ELECTION
The US Election was closely followed and discussed in Canada.
Canadians think the Trump presidency will be terrible for Canada.
Huge spike in Canadians attributing foreign influence to India.
Widespread awareness of calls for Trudeau to step down.
SEPTEMBER 2024: TUNING IN TO THE CANADIAN PODCAST ECOSYSTEM
TikTok increasingly dominates news engagement.
Elected officials lose trust.
Podcasts playing an increasingly important role in Canada, particularly for the politically interested.
CBC surges in popularity, BlogTO enters the Top 5 and appetite for local news increases.
Information Incident Notification︱ Russian Funding of US and Canadian Political Influencers
On September 4, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) unsealed charges against two employees of Russian state media network RT for conspiracy to violate the American Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The indictment describes a nearly $10 million USD scheme to create and propagate content that aligns with Russian political motives through an unnamed American company.
AUGUST 2024: WHAT’S ALL THIS BUZZ ABOUT BOTS?
Key findings:
Canadians want the government to get involved in the fight against bots
The ecosystem has become slightly more polarized
Engagement with misinformation and concern about fake content increases
Incident Debrief ︱August 3 Bot Activity on 𝕏 Related to Rally in Kirkland Lake
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].
Incident Update 6︱Bots and LLMs
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.
Incident Update 5︱Survey Findings : Kirkland Lake Bot Incident
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.
Incident Update 4︱Spot the Bot: The Presence of Suspected Bots on Canadian Politician Accounts
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.
Incident Update 3︱Exploring incident replicability using commercial AI tools
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.
Incident Update 2︱More Bot than Bite: A Qualitative Analysis of the Conversation Online
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?
Incident Update 1︱Bot Campaign most likely the work of an amateur, reports CDMRN partner The Social Media Lab
Did a single person create the suspected bot attack in which hundreds of users posted about the Conservatives’ rally in Kirkland Lake, Ontario?