Alex MacIsaac

Thanks so much Megan!

We put out the first report from our new project "VERIFIED" yesterday looking at the r/Canada Reddit community and particularly how a very small group of users are able to have an outsized influence over a forum viewed by millions of Canadians.

#cdnpoli #reddit

www.samaracentre.ca/articles/fed...

This op-ed draws from our recent @thesamaracentre.bsky.social report (linked below).

We can't know how pervasive the use of bots, synthetic content, or astroturfing is in our online spaces without demanding greater transparency from digital platforms.

www.samaracentre.ca/sambot-alber...

Opinion: Is that online outrage you’re seeing really grassroots, or just ‘astroturfing’? Fake engagement, disinformation and co-ordinated manipulation efforts are skewing our understanding of public opinion – and the problem is bigger than we think

From @beathenorth.bsky.social and I for the @theglobeandmail.com today: inauthentic behaviour and 'astroturfing' can work to shift and skew political public opinion in online spaces - and we can't know how common and coercive the practice may be.

www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/arti...

This is just a sample of the findings included in our report, so please, feel free to read the full report here: www.samaracentre.ca/sambot-alber...

And finally, we're seeing that some of the largest spikes in both engagement and abuse during the entire election correlates with news or social media posts about LGBTQ+ rights.

This follows the trends surrounding LGBTQ+-related discussions that we've observed in our previous SAMbot reports.

We believe that based off of our findings and external research that it's likely astroturfing is having significant impact in Canadian online political discussions.

More Canadian research needs to focus on this topic so we can understand how astroturfing is effecting Canadian public opinion.

Astroturfing is the practice of hiding the sponsors of a message to make it appear as though the message originates from, and is supported by, grassroots participants, to manipulate public opinion. It's a type of inauthentic engagement that both domestic and foreign actors are likely using online.

By looking at data on "numerical usernames" we were able to identify a group of 1,033 users that were taking up an even more significantly outsized space in online discussions, while being more likely to be inauthentic.

The top 41 highest volume users of that group accounted for 2% of all tweets.

12% of all tweets (300,861 total tweets) came from just 200 users.

Abusive tweets were even more concentrated at the top - 12% of all abusive tweets came from just 50 users.

Very few individuals are taking up an outsized space in online political discussions.

Some key highlights of this report include: how very small groups of users have outsized impact, evidence of potential astroturfing and inauthentic engagement, and trends in LGBTQ+ rights discussions (that are becoming increasingly hostile in Canada).

We have a new SAMbot report out today! This time, we've investigated online engagement and abuse on Twitter surrounding the 2023 Alberta election.

www.samaracentre.ca/sambot-alber...