Ads on X spoofing Canadian news part of growing disinformation trend: analyst

Sponsored posts masquerading as mainstream news content are muddying the waters in Canada's political scene, CTV Windsor's Ricardo Veneza has the details.

Sponsored posts masquerading as mainstream news content on American social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, are inundating feeds with messages targeting Canadian political leaders — and it appears to be part of a Russian-backed scheme.

The posts mimic CBC News articles and contain sensational headlines targeting Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh.

“It uses hyperbolic phrases designed to grab your attention,” Carmi Levy, a technology analyst, told CTV News.

Levy expects these types of disinformation campaigns to become more prevalent as Canadians head to the polls provincially, in Ontario, and federally.

“We know that bad actors, malevolent actors, are using social media digital tools to spread misinformation to perhaps get us to respond in ways that we wouldn’t otherwise, to throw the election perhaps, maybe even support one candidate or party over another,” said Levy.

Furthermore, he points to loosening approaches to content moderation and fact-checking on major platforms like X, and now Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, as other key contributors to the proliferation of fake posts and targeted disinformation campaigns.

“X has led the way in relaxing its content moderation and fact-checking efforts,” said Levy. “So, Elon Musk fired most of the content moderators. He no longer partners with fact-checking organizations.”

A CBC News investigation concerning the posts targeting its brand traced the ads to Russian internet infrastructure and found they’re designed to lure Canadians into a scam that’s been employed elsewhere, including the U.K. and Australia.

It’s an issue that’s grown in recent years, enough to see former U.S. president Joe Biden highlight his concern in his farewell address.

“Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation enabling the abuse of power,” said Biden in a direct-to-camera address from the Resolute desk. “The truth is smothered by lies, told for power and for profit.”

According to Levy, Canada is not shielded from the overload of disinformation flooding across the border — particularly as the new Trump administration takes a hands-off approach to online content moderation.

“They’re a much larger country. Their internet traffic flows over that border. We’re going to be affected one way or the other,” said Levy.

In its most recent release addressing its revised content moderation approach, X says it continues its work to safeguard the platform from bad actors.

“Community Notes now address a far wider range of topics than our historic approaches to addressing misleading information,” read the post from X in 2023.

Guarding against disinformation

The Canadian government has provided literature to public servants as part of its approach to combat the deluge of disinformation.

The Countering Disinformation: A Guidebook for Public Servants defines disinformation as:

“Deliberately false information that is disseminated to deceive or cause harm.”

The guidebook highlights a few key and common traits of disinformation posts that aim to obfuscate and sow confusion.

According to the guide, look for content that:

- aims to provoke a strong emotional response

- makes a bold statement about a controversial issue

- makes an extraordinary claim

- has been shared widely on platforms with a track record of spreading disinformation

- uses small pieces of valid information that are exaggerated or distorted

- contains clickbait

- seems too good to be true

Levy says, unlike traditional broadcast media which is licensed and required to meet industry standards set by public officials, social media platforms largely operate in a regulatory vacuum.

That, he says, requires everyday people to improve their media literacy and become more astute consumers of information.

“We’re really going to have to be on guard in the weeks and months to come,” said Levy. “Now anybody can buy a verification check as long as they can afford [$8.75] a month on their credit card.”

And it appears strengthened regulations aren’t in the offing anytime soon.

“In the ideal world, we would have laws in place that apply to the digital space, similar to what we have in place for broadcasting,” said Levy. “But, unfortunately, especially as the Trump administration [takes] power, we are seeing a significant shift in U.S. policy away from wanting to regulate big technology companies like Meta, like X, and holding them accountable.”