Outside Influence 9
Twitter/X is a Dystopia
As promised, here is a quick pre-election day update.
What the Bots Are Saying
Our usual sample of posts on Twitter/X mentioning parties, leaders and handles showed Carney’s Liberals enjoying about 90 percent positive posts, while Poilievre’s Conservatives had over 70 percent – higher than the usual levels for either party, but much higher for the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC), which has previously seen 50-70 percent (or even higher rates of) negative posts in this campaign.
However, a study commissioned by the Financial Times and carried out by researchers at the University of Southern California led by Luca Luceri analyzed 350,000 election-related posts using AI and found that posts mentioning Carney were 80 percent negative, “while the majority of posts about Poilievre are favourable.”
These findings were summarized in the FT on April 25 and need not contradict our analysis. One overall conclusion may be that election-related posts on Twitter/X have been largely negative in this cycle. In a larger sample (taken today) of one hundred posts mentioning ‘#cdnpoli’, ‘Canada’, ‘Mark Carney’ and/or ‘Pierre Poilievre’ — the terms mentioned in the FT piece — we found 75 percent were pro-Carney and 25 percent pro-Poilievre. Many accounts mentioning Poilievre in a positive light had taken pro-Russian or other extreme positions in the past.
There is no doubt coordinated inauthentic activity on Twitter/X to discredit Carney. But the platform’s algorithm is still broadly prioritizing pro-Carney posts. Pro-Poilievre material is often from handles associated with the truckers’ blockade, Wexit, anti-NATO, pro-Trump/MAGA or other pro-Russian stances, which have little current appeal in Canada today and are liabilities in this election.
US Dimension
On the day before Canada’s election, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had the following exchange with Kristen Welker of NBC Meet the Press:
QUESTION: “Mr. Secretary, very quickly because we’re out of time already, but Canadians, as you know, head to the polls tomorrow for their parliamentary elections. Have you taken any steps to carry out President Trump’s plans? He says he wants to annex Canada.”
SECRETARY RUBIO: “Any what? I’m sorry.”
QUESTION: “Any plans to carry out —”
SECRETARY RUBIO: “I missed the last part of your question.”
QUESTION: “Absolutely. I’ll repeat it. Have you taken any steps to carry out President Trump’s plans, as he has said he would like to annex Canada? Have you taken any steps in that direction?”
SECRETARY RUBIO: “No, I think what the – no, no, what the President has said, and he has said this repeatedly, is he was told by the previous prime minister that Canada could not survive without unfair trade with the United States, at which point he asked, well, if you can’t survive as a nation without treating us unfairly in trade, then you should become a state. That’s what he said.”
“They’ll have their elections this week. They’re going to have a new leader and we’ll deal with the new leadership of Canada. There are many things we work with cooperatively on Canada on, but we actually don’t like the way they treated us when it comes to trade. And the President has made that point when he responded to the previous prime minister in regards to this.”
QUESTION: “So does the President – does the U.S. – still want to make Canada the 51st state?”
SECRETARY RUBIO: “I think the President has stated repeatedly he thinks Canada would be better off as a state. I mean, and he has said that based on what he was told by the previous prime minister, who said Canada can’t survive unless it treats the U.S. unfairly in trade.”
QUESTION: “All right, okay. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, thank you so much. We covered a lot of ground today. Really appreciate your joining us.”
SECRETARY RUBIO: “Thank you.”
Once again, these remarks are absolutely outrageous. They violate every basic rule of diplomacy in the book and must receive the firm response they deserve.
Foreign Proxies
Sam Cooper at The Bureau has highlighted warnings from Taiwanese officials about China’s tactics for influencing elections, which include use of criminal networks. In Taiwan’s experience, the best way to neutralize such influence campaigns is through high turnout. Let’s hope Canadians cast ballots in record numbers tomorrow.