Elections Canada has released this resource with some common bits of false or misleading content about elections on social media: https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=res&dir=dis&document=index&lang=e
We plan on pinning this resource, and we are proposing the following rules:
- Posts or comments with inaccurate or misleading information from this list will be removed, and users are encouraged to report them
- Repeatedly posting such content will result in a ban from the community until April 28 (at a minimum)
So far we haven’t noticed any serious issues, but we want to get ahead of anything that might come up
How about a reminder to not feed the trolls?
Edit: And maybe a pinned daily or weekly (depending on traffic) mega thread?
I think this would be a reasonable step to take. IMO it’s better to have policies in place before things go sideways rather than try to implement things afterwards so kudos for this!
Sounds good to me.
CANADA DOESNT NEED A SMALL pp
Will we be restricting the posting of links to foreign owned media?
I’m sure @[email protected] will like to speak up. As they have produced a great guide on foreign media posing as canadian.
No need to, people like you and others have already done so! As was the original hope of creating the infographic!
I’ll take a step back from this. Proportional representation is the real end game.
To what extent? Do we have an issue with Reuters or AP now? How about Canadian commentators like Steve Boots on foreign YouTube?
I’m having a hard time envisioning a rule around this that can be enforced equitably, but we can equitably reject content regardless of source, based on established merits of its substance.
Technically Reuters is not foreign owned
Instead of an open ended rule, it’s easier to just blocklist a few repeat offenders like everything owned by Postmedia.
Let’s also add Sun Media and Saltwire Network to the blocklist.
No decisions have been made on that yet, and I’m happy to discuss more about it :)
Right now, I think a rule like that might be too broad. A big part of this election is about what’s going on outside of Canada, so I can see us having to make exceptions for important news that hasn’t been covered by a local news organization yet. I’d prefer to set some basic rules that we can follow consistently, and deal with problem posts if/when they get posted. Misleading and inaccurate headlines would still be removed under this rule
Just to add to your comment, case in point, The Guardian sometimes covers Canadian news, and has recently published a bit more about current Canadian political events. They operate mainly in the UK but have a US office. They are independent and don’t have a corporate backer, and have been working relentlessly covering the events in the US since the new admin took power.
Digressing a bit, I’d urge people to use tools like GroundNews to find out the political leanings and maybe even the corporate owners of news outlets that you come across, and use that to your own judgement.
True, as Reuters, The Guardian and The Associated Press are not pretending to be Canadian in order to push their oligarchical interests.
I mean, just block things from the Sun network and it’s half the job done. No complicated debates required, no risk of cross-fire with the entire rest of the news world.
That seems like a little much - there’s plenty of foreign media that produces worthwhile content.
Blacklisting certain outlets, on the other hand…
I certainly wouldn’t miss the Western Standard…
That may be a more reasonable and targeted approach. I am mainly suggesting this from a place of concern about US interference in our upcoming election.
It may be easier to have a specific list of banned outlets.
strongly agree! there is so much trouble allready with misinformation, anything to help stop its spread helps
Good timing as I remember back in the fall that there were some trolls brigading the instance defending their lord of Nechako Lakes.
Good luck to my northern neighbors. It’s near impossible to stop the online shitnado.
That seems like a good move.
Why would repeatedly posting electoral misinformation during an election only result in a ban until the election was over? I don’t think these people would become good actors just because the election ended.
This is true, and we wouldn’t want to keep a bad actor around just because the election is over. I’ll change the wording to add ‘minimum’
We’re also working on updated guidelines, so there will be a bigger call for feedback like this once we have that together. Those guidelines will apply site wide and across the different platforms (pixelfed.ca for example). How we deal with misinformation is an important area that we want to get right
I imagine a “you can apply to be unbanned after April 28” could suffice. Almost certainly these folks (or bots?) will just disappear after the date and not bother to apply.
Not saying that we should do this - just that after April 28 matters less because most of the bad actors will almost certainly abandon their accounts after the election.
My understanding is that this covers only disinformation about Elections Canada, not in general, like news about people, politicians, provinces, policies, institutions, etc…
I suggest to also pin + sidebar one of Canada’s guides to identify and report disinformation.
- https://www.canada.ca/en/campaign/online-disinformation.html (my favourite — but be careful with the “fact-checking accounts” video, it is a bit out of date, since people can buy verification tags now)
- https://www.canada.ca/en/privy-council/news/2025/03/detecting-and-reporting-disinformation.html
- https://www.cyber.gc.ca/en/guidance/how-identify-misinformation-disinformation-and-malinformation-itsap00300
