How Fake News, Trolls, and Algorithms Are Manipulating Canadian Elections

The Liberal Party won the Canadian election, securing Mark Carney's return as prime minister. The outcome was far from certain, with their main rival, Pierre Poilievre, and the Conservative Party narrowly losing but achieving a record-high level of support compared to previous elections. This contest marked a new chapter in Canadian democratic history, being the first federal campaign conducted in the age of artificial intelligence.

This new scenario presented new threats, including the spread of deepfake images of political leaders disguised as real news, foreign influence attempts from China and the United States aimed at swaying public opinion about the candidates, and concerning online disinformation surrounding the electoral process itself.

Canada’s Election Campaign: Meta and Deepfakes

From the start of the election campaign, experts highlighted Canada's high vulnerability to potential foreign interference. Hostile entities, possibly from the United States, analysts suggested, could attempt to manipulate the democratic process by spreading disinformation online. These fears proved well-founded: the theoretical threat became a concrete reality.

The Canadian federal elections on April 28 marked a historic first, as they were the first to take place after the ban on sharing Canadian news on Meta's platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. This block, which took effect in August 2023, stemmed from the dispute between the tech giant and the Canadian government over the Online News Act, also known as Bill C-18. The law requires digital platforms like Meta and Alphabet, Google's parent company, to compensate news outlets for sharing their content.

Meta labeled the legislation "unworkable," arguing that the only viable option was to completely cut off news availability for Canadian users. However, research conducted by the Media Ecosystem Observatory (MEO), a McGill University research group studying digital threats to democracy, revealed a significant finding. Despite the official ban, more than half of Canadians reported still receiving political news through Facebook, even though the platform had blocked content from accredited journalistic sources.

An exorbitant number of AI-generated advertisements, disguised as articles from trustworthy Canadian news organizations, flooded social media, becoming increasingly sophisticated and polarizing as the campaign progressed. According to a poll by the Canadian Digital Media Research Network (CDMRN), a coalition funded by the federal government and coordinated by the MEO, roughly a quarter of Canadians claimed to have encountered this type of fake news. Nevertheless, the majority of respondents stated they immediately recognized the manipulative nature of the content.

According to CDMRN analysts, more than 80 Facebook pages disseminated misleading advertisements during the election period. Despite being reported, Meta only removed about half of this content. Experts warn that this proliferation of fraudulent information risks undermining public trust in both the electoral process and media institutions. While Meta claims to promptly remove ads, pages, and accounts that violate their policies, including those with deceptive practices or fraudulent impersonations of public figures, its claims are contradicted by the CDMRN data. Researchers point out that the constant reappearance of this content demonstrates structural deficiencies in the platforms' detection and enforcement systems, a failure that jeopardizes the democratic digital ecosystem.

The SITE Task Force (Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections), the federal body responsible for monitoring electoral threats, identified two distinct social media campaigns of apparent Chinese origin, aimed at influencing the opinions of Canadians of Chinese descent.

The first operation, conducted through the Youli-Youmian account on the WeChat platform, targeted Mark Carney, leader of the Liberal Party of Canada (LPC). The second campaign focused on Joe Tay, a Conservative candidate in Toronto and a known critic of Beijing's policies regarding the suppression of civil rights in Hong Kong.

Researchers identified a series of fraudulent activities mirroring a pattern already observed internationally. These scams involved publishing ads containing "false and sensational political headlines," disseminated through fake accounts mimicking personal profiles and small business pages. One such ad bore the headline "Mark Carney Announces Controversial Retaliatory Tariff Plan in Response to Devastating Tariff Hikes Imposed by Trump This Week." The article, crafted to appear credible, included an altered image depicting Carney alongside a well-known CBC host, accompanied by a fabricated transcript of an interview in which the politician promised financial support to citizens who registered for a supposed new government program. The provided link did not lead to any official measure but instead redirected to a cryptocurrency scam.

Beyond Foreign Interference in Canada’s Elections

In its concluding analysis, the SITE Task Force determined that anti-polarization measures had preserved the integrity of the Canadian elections, allowing a free and fair electoral process to proceed despite manipulation attempts. However, experts caution that these interferences persist as a constant threat to the quality of democratic debate.

A prime example of this emerged with Elon Musk's public endorsement of Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. The entrepreneur, whose unique position as a dominant figure in the tech industry and the world's wealthiest individual grants him global influence, directed this power toward the Canadian democratic process.

Through his social media platform, Musk repeatedly promoted Poilievre, sharing his content, offering public praise, and supporting his media appearances.

This meddling is corroborated by an in-depth analysis from the Financial Times, which, examining 350,000 posts on Twitter, identified a coordinated campaign with the dual aim of bolstering Poilievre's credibility while simultaneously attacking the reputation of Liberal leader Mark Carney.

The New York Times reported that certain third-party advertisers, such as the group Canada Proud, conducted disinformation campaigns against Carney, disseminating false and misleading claims. These included statements alleging that Carney had suspended his campaign or had ties to Ghislaine Maxwell, convicted of sex trafficking.

Canada Proud, a Canadian political advocacy group using social media to promote conservative viewpoints, linked to Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and known for not disclosing its funding, invested at least $250,000 in deceptive advertising in the lead-up to the elections.

Liberal leader Mark Carney's victory is not the only significant takeaway from these Canadian elections. As in much of the world, Canada is witnessing a worrying decline in trust in traditional institutions. In their place, fringe figures and alternative media platforms are gaining ground, contributing to an increasingly divided society where citizens no longer share the same basic facts.

The real issue is that rampant disinformation is redefining the very way not only Canadians, but people around the world, distinguish truth from falsehood. While public attention obsessively focuses on foreign interference, much of the manipulation occurs domestically, often funded by the very governments that should be protecting their citizens.

It is no longer just about information. States and political actors are investing increasing resources to actively shape public perception. Traditional media is no longer enough; digital armies of trolls, coordinated microtargeting campaigns on social media, and sophisticated strategies to amplify certain voices and silence others are now the norm. It is an information war fought daily, one like and share at a time, where truth is often the first casualty.

Increasingly, electoral choices are made without genuine critical examination and, above all, without a clear understanding of the motivations behind them. Canada is no exception, but rather another example of a democracy where truth struggles to prevail amid widespread disinformation.

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