Elections Canada, the agency responsible for administering federal elections, has announced that it has been “in touch” with social media platforms like X and TikTok, as the country goes into campaign mode.
TikTok has already revealed that whatever is considered “harmful misinformation” will be removed, while fact-checkers will be used to label content they decide cannot be verified.
The concern is, as ever, the perception of “misinformation” and its effect, which Canada’s authorities, like many others around the world, elevate to the level of no less than “the single biggest risk to our democracy,” and, “an existential threat.”
That is what the Foreign Interference Commission, set up by the Canadian government in 2023, recently concluded in a report, noting that this is true both of foreign and other forms of “information manipulation.”
Now Elections Canada is “building” on this fearmongering climate to put pressure on social media companies to censor more diligently during the campaign.
Chief Electoral Officer Stephane Perrault said he is satisfied with the way the companies are thus far responding to the demands to “secure” the election and its integrity.
And while Perrault is promising that the public will learn about these communications with social firms, some of them, like TikTok, are already issuing press releases detailing how they intend to behave during the campaign in Canada.
The company revealed that it is “working” with Elections Canada – and that the result of that work has been the newly introduced in-app Election Center.
The Center is supposed to provide “media literacy and authoritative information” and users will be nudged to visit it via prompts that appear on videos and searches related to the election. In addition, users will be directed to the site of Elections Canada.
Meta is also “working” with the agency, according to a blog post published last week. Besides informing users in Canada where, when, and how they can cast their ballots, Meta promises “advanced security operations and transparency around political and social issue ads.”
And the giant will be labeling “realistic” AI-generated content – but also “some other types of organic content.”
Meta’s post does not clarify if it will be using third-party fact-checkers on its platforms accessed by users in Canada.