Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 22nd, 2024

[Michael Wagner]

That's a great question. A lot of it has to do with the audience that individual social media users cultivate. Some people—most people, I think—cultivate audiences around their interests relating to entertainment, in some sort of way, or sports or those kinds of things. Others cultivate audiences based upon commenting on public affairs, sharing evidence about politics or trying to organize and persuade people or to sow chaos in the social media ecosphere. I think it really depends upon what the purpose is, to answer that question.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

As you know, X had a problem in Brazil recently. It was initially blocked there, but then the government unblocked access to the platform.

Did X change anything to have its access reinstated in Brazil?

[Michael Wagner]

I'm not directly aware of changes that Twitter made with respect to what happened to them in Brazil. I can say that, in general, they often alter their behaviours in response to governments regulating or fining them.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

As you said a little earlier, when an issue comes up and gets attention, people improve their practices when they're in the spotlight, but then go back to the same behaviour.

[Michael Wagner]

That at least happened with Facebook. We know to some degree that this happened after the ownership change of Twitter and its renaming to X. There's been a difference in the content moderation behaviours of that platform since then.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Could you give us more details on X's content moderation?

[Michael Wagner]

There is far less content moderation. Most of the staff who were doing that were either fired or quit after Twitter was taken over by Mr. Musk. Part of it is that—but it's not that there isn't any. There's a feature, I think now called “community notes”, that will sometimes append a post. Usually the thing that has to happen to get to that feature being enacted is that multiple sides of a political debate have to agree that the claim was false. If one side is pushing a false claim, that's not usually enough to invoke the community notes feature.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

What do you think is the worst platform when it comes to disinformation?

[Michael Wagner]

That's a really hard question. I think probably Truth Social would be the single worst. There's this kind of unfettered access to saying things that aren't true. Very little behaviour from the platform lets the audience know that claims being shared widely are not true.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

For now, I'm going to exclude Truth Social from the equation, because it cultivates users who are mainly from one particular segment of the population rather than the general public.

Other than Truth Social, which platform is the worst actor when it comes to disinformation?

[Michael Wagner]

It's hard to say with accuracy, because we don't know the denominator of how many posts are made on all of the different platforms as compared to how many things aren't true. My impression is that X has now become that leader, but I don't know that as an empirical fact.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Wagner.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Villemure.

Mr. Green, you have six minutes. Go ahead, please.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Wagner, can you please state your subject matter expertise on this topic once more for the record?

[Michael Wagner]

Sure. I have a Ph.D. in political science. I conduct research on individual engagement in information ecologies, including news, social media and individual conversation. I look at outcomes related to what people believe to be true, what they want from their government and how they participate civically and politically.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Suelzle, can you please state your subject matter expertise on misinformation and disinformation?

[Jacob Suelzle]

I'll state my experience as a correctional officer since 2007 within the federal penitentiary system.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

So you have no subject matter expertise on misinformation or disinformation? Okay.

Mr. Wagner, with that being said, who are the primary actors spreading misinformation, disinformation and malinformation? I know you're coming from an American context, but perhaps you might have some insight into the Canadian political system.

[Michael Wagner]

A lot of misinformation and disinformation that is shared in western democracies originates from Russian sources in the IRA, the Internet Research Agency, and other bot farms in different parts of Europe that exist to sow false claims and try to spread them. In the American context, a key spreader of misinformation that also gets a lot of attention is former President Donald Trump, with an account that spreads a lot of misinformation.

I would say the primary organization that is really attempting to influence elections in Canada and the United States is the Russian IRA.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Are certain parliamentarians more at risk than others of being targeted and affected by disinformation campaigns?

[Michael Wagner]

It seems that the IRA, or the Russian government, has candidates it would prefer to see win elections and candidates it would prefer to see lose elections. Those it would prefer to see lose have a greater likelihood of being targeted with negative information.

However, sometimes, candidates in different parties get positive and negative information from these agencies as an effort to just sow chaos and be confusing, which is often one of the objectives of this kind of organization.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Is it fair to say this goes well beyond Russia? I would put it to you that in my experience, we love to oversimplify this as Russian or Chinese, or maybe Indian sometimes, but is it not fair to say there are various state-sponsored Internet propaganda machines being used to spread this?

I would reference Operation Earnest Voice in the United States of America. You talked about Donald Trump. Obviously, the United States was a prime propagator of the Chinese virus during COVID and a lot of vaccine misinformation and disinformation. Israel, a so-called ally, has the hasbara. It has a whole ministry of strategic affairs that deals with targeting political actors, and I know that's come out in the United States.

Can you maybe just take a step back, zoom out and talk a bit more beyond just Russia in terms of state-sponsored Internet propaganda machines out there?

[Michael Wagner]

There are lots of state-sponsored efforts to try to influence elections in other countries and in their own countries. There are lots of non-state-sponsored organizations that are also trying to do the same, and do so by trying to spread mis- and disinformation.

It's certainly not any one actor. If asked to name the primary one, I would say Russia, as I did when I was asked earlier, but in general, there are as many opportunities as there are users of the Internet in some respects.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

What advice would you have, if any, for us on dealing with attempts, times or scenarios that become prevalent when our so-called allies are actively engaged in presenting misinformation and disinformation?

Do you view it as a national security threat when foreign state actors are actively engaged in spreading disinformation and misinformation?

[Michael Wagner]

That's outside my area of expertise, but as a citizen, I worry about how state-sponsored mis- and disinformation from or toward allies or adversaries.... Yes, I worry about all of it. It's certainly something that, in my view, governments should be talking with each other about, and parliamentarians should be talking with their constituents about it.