Thank you for the question.
The method used by Russia in 2016 and in 2020 was to disseminate information constantly, massively and rapidly, much more rapidly than a human being or a media platform would be capable of doing. As I said earlier, the method consists of sending out enormous amounts of information, some of which will be contradictory, and the truth is not important. The information that will be retained and disseminated is the information that hooks people. So they will observe what information is reposted the fastest on Twitter or Facebook. If they see that a trend is developing, or information is taking hold, they will continue to disseminate it. If there is information that people are not agreeing with, it will be discarded or modified. They adapt extremely well. So the Russian method is based on speed and quantity.
Yes, we are still seeing the effects of these activities, because once the division is created and the doubt is sown, it is hard to rebuild trust. In the United States, a significant fringe of the population no longer trusts its institutions. Both Russia and political parties have repeated that the election was stolen and the result was not valid. Once a significant fringe of the population completely loses confidence in its institutions, it is very difficult to regain its trust and recreate unity.
We definitely still see divisions. Of course, the situation may be different in Canada, but once a political party gets hold of the information, politicizes it and associates it with its party line, as we saw in the United States, that creates divisions and it is then extremely difficult to reconcile that information.