:(
Canada has been flooded by both US and Russian social media campaigns, all designed to exploit and amplify exactly these kinds of “culture war” divisions. I’m not surprised at all, that many Canadian Conservatives have fallen for it. I only hope that they are surrounded by family members with the patience and empathy required to push back on it.
Social Media algorithms are also massively to blame and the Canadian government would rather introduce ineffective and restrictive age verification than reign in SM giants.
Algorithms are designed to show you more of what you’ve already been watching, but they don’t produce the content.
I wish that were true, but it’s been reported on and researched extensively since at least 2021 on how algorithms push rightwing content. That’s why Spain took the stance of penalizing the companies responsible for the algorithms.
Twitter amplifies tweets from right-leaning political parties and news outlets more than from the left, its own research suggests.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-59011271
YouTube has a pattern of recommending right-leaning and Christian videos, even to users who haven’t previously interacted with that kind of content, according to a recent study of the platform’s suggestions to users. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/youtubes-algorithm-recommends-users-right-wing-religious-content-resea-rcna155478
Even when avatars signaled an exclusive interest in left-wing politics, right-wing perspectives continued to dominate their feeds, suggesting that platform amplification overrides user preference.
Also didnt it just come out that meta is paying people who break their own TOU? Theyve been dinged giving ad revenue to actual antisemites and white nationalists, id bet my whole ass rage bait is basically funded by meta ad revenue on there even though it technically breaks their rules.
Yep! They knowingly allowed ragebait and ultra right-wing influencers because they brought in engagement and ad revenue to the company, and also ad revenue for the content creators (which Meta pays out).
https://cybernews.com/tech/meta-tiktok-ragebait-revenue-whistleblowers/
It feels like a hard push by them but it’s still not as previlent as I think both nations leaders are hoping. Iv seen v little in regards to it irl. Feels more like their going to cause these more ‘concsrvstive’ groups to be further alienated more then anything.
Feels more like their going to cause these more ‘concsrvstive’ groups to be further alienated more then anything
Unfortunately, that’s literally the entire purpose behind it. They want pockets of our own population to turn against the rest. To start seeing themselves as persecuted outsiders. This makes them very susceptible to foreign influence campaigns, because they will already identify more with US or Russian interests than Canadian ones.
Right now, those people are still a minority. But they are growing in numbers all the time. The Alberta Separatist Movement is a perfect example. It seems like a joke right now…but if we don’t do something to counter this kind of movement sooner rather than later, it will eventually put us in the same position that Ukraine is in, with Russia.
You’re spot on, Ive countered both branches of chud (antivax and anti-LGBTQ+) at their dumb little rallies and the venn diagram is a circle. Theyre all the same people.
The only thing working against them is that they might eat each other metaphorically sooner rather than later but the erosion of rights is going to happen along the way and it’s going to hurt a lot of LGBTQ+ (specifically gender diverse) people who are just trying to vibe and survive