John Ivison: The election was a hotbed for disinformation. The next one will be worse
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Information manipulation poses the single biggest threat to Canadian democracy, concluded commissioner Marie Josée Hogue, in her final report on foreign interference in federal elections, earlier this year.
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It probably came as no surprise to the commissioner that emerging technologies amplified the falsehoods during the recent general election.
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Generative AI has emerged as a new player in the disinformation game, enabling malign actors to create huge quantities of misleading content.
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Cyabra, a company that monitors disinformation online, published a two-part analysis on the use of fake profiles by co-ordinated networks on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and Instagram to target the Liberal campaign and party leader Mark Carney.
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The claims were often accompanied by fabricated images that suggested Carney is a 'child-molesting pervert' and were shared as if they were authentic.
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A crossover from the online world to the campaign took place at a Liberal rally in Kitchener, Ont., when a heckler was heard shouting: 'How many kids did you molest with Jeffrey Epstein?'
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Cyabra's detection systems identified that nearly one-quarter of the X accounts were fake (the software looks for signs like synchronized posting, copy-paste campaigns, fake engagement loops and other bot-like behaviour, such as accounts with no personal bios and using default avatars).
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It found that 28 per cent of the profiles were fake and pushed negative sentiment, such as labelling Carney as an elitist who was trying to manipulate the political process. The profiles portrayed the political system as corrupt and urged people not to vote Liberal.
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