Thank you CBC Saskatchewan for having me on Blue Sky last week to talk about Media Ecosystem Observatory's recent findings on the consequences of the Meta news ban! youtube.com/watch?v=P4eq8D…

75% of Canadians rely on digital sources, while nearly half still use #radio and #TV. Surprisingly, 32.1% also prefer #print - showing a continued demand for paper news!

Kirkland Lake Incident Update: Bot Campaign was most likely the work of an amateur, reports CDMRN partner Social Media Lab. After manual review, it is estimated around 200 bot accounts were involved, most created in the last two months. No similar campaigns were found on other platforms.

RAPID RESPONSE SURVEY LAUNCHES TODAY (running Aug 16-18), studying Canadians' awareness, perceptions, and the impact of recent speculation of a bot campaign allegedly supporting Pierre Poilievre and its implications for democracy. Results coming mid-next week! #CdnPoli

"This is like a flag of what can come in, especially during elections. So there's a lot that can be learned and understood around these sorts of things," says Jennie Phillips regarding the Kirkland Lake bot campaign: cbc.ca/news/politics/…

KIRKLAND LAKE BOT CAMPAIGN REACTIONS: Charlie Angus called for a probe into Conservative collusion; Mark Gerretsen 🇨🇦 🇺🇦 accused them of buying bots; but Pierre Poilievre's posts still got 85% of the online engagement, overshadowing the bot incident. shorturl.at/3ckzc

4 out of 5 free AIs tested allow users to easily generate content related to politics that could feed social media bots in potentially problematic ways, finds new research from the Applied AI Institute + Cybersecurity Hub (@concordia) and Pol Comm Tech Lab: shorturl.at/BvXqJ

New research suggests 98% of 𝕏 posts and 35% of Facebook posts had potential bot activity in the comments on both Pierre Poilievre and Justin Trudeau’s accounts. Bots are hard to identify since they mimic real users. Read more: shorturl.at/Rr57D

59% of Canadians think posts about the Kirkland Lake event were from bots. Of those, 45% suspect a party or individual. 79% blame Conservatives, 18% Liberals, 11% NDP. 2/3 of NDP & Liberals think Conservatives gain; Conservatives think Liberals benefit. shorturl.at/vbg7L

BOT MESSAGE REACH VS. DISCUSSION: Kirkland Lake bots themselves got low engagement, but reactions from 𝕏 users drove millions of views. Bot posts had minimal impact compared to the widespread discussion they sparked. shorturl.at/Ebl0R

"If you do not have an informed population, then democratic elections don’t work. Accountability and democratic politics don’t work. None of it works," said Aengus Bridgman (him/il) to Raisa Patel. Read the full article in the Toronto Star 👉🏼 shorturl.at/T5gk6

Following the August 3 bot activity on 𝕏 related to Pierre Poilievre’s rally in Kirkland Lake, we’ve published our final incident debrief assessing the incident, threats, and lessons learned. Read on our website at shorturl.at/2y1wO or watch the TL;DR below 👀

Our team will monitor B.C. election chatter to study misinformation and flag incidents. Our research shows that disinfo bot campaigns can be rapidly deployed at scale. Read Cat Tunney’s story on how provinces can prepare for foreign meddling 👉🏽 shorturl.at/amGO9

We couldn’t agree more: tech giants need to be more accountable and transparent. Researchers rely on this data for our work and need continuous access to independent, high-quality data to effectively address incidents and strengthen our information ecosystem.

Curious about how observatories analyze the billions of social media posts published daily? Alexei Sisulu Abrahams, MEO's Digital Research Lead, has written an insightful book about this topic. You can preorder now it now👉🏽 shorturl.at/3QoeM