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Fake News Travels Fast: This is how it’s impacting Canada’s election

October 17, 2019
Anatoliy Gruzd and Tom Clark discuss the Canadian election
From left: Professor Anatoliy Gruzd, Tom Clark

Social media and its impact on world events has begun to challenge the notions of democracy and despite what some might think, Professor and Canada Research Chair Anatoliy Gruzd says Canada is not immune to this kind of threat. 

In the latest Dean’s Speaker Series, #FakeNews Travels Fast - How Social Bots and Trolls Are Reshaping Public Debates (external link) , Gruzd breaks down how social bots and trolls impacted the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election and how they are impacting Canada’s election now. 

When it comes to the Canadian election, Gruzd says, “even though we haven’t seen a strong coordinated effort on the part of bots, we did see a high level, high prevalence of anti-social trolling behaviour.”

Gruzd, who is also the Director of Research at the Social Media Lab, defines trolls as real people who use insulting, bullying, and deliberate behaviour, to provoke a reaction which has significant emotive effects. Gruzd found that there are more trolls than bad social bots in the public realm during this election.

“Using free speech as an excuse for trolling online is very problematic,” said Gruzd, during his fireside chat with Tom Clark, the Chair of Global Public Affairs and former chief political correspondent for Global News. 

“The concern here is that this high level of anti-social behaviour makes candidates and other Canadians less likely to contribute to what is supposed to be a new public sphere in a more meaningful way.”

Gruzd describes socials bots as software designed to act on the Internet with some level of autonomy. Social bots can be both good and bad, with many bad bots aiming to spread misinformation, expose private information and influence public opinion. 

In Gruzd’s research, he found that despite finding a few ‘bad’ bots in the Twitterverse related to the Canadian election, there was no appearance of a coordinated effort to influence the election, as was seen in the U.S. election.