Social media monitoring – CEO Appearance on the 44th General Election before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs
Key Messages
Since the 2015 General Election (GE), Elections Canada (EC) has been monitoring the information environment in order to observe inaccurate narratives about the federal electoral process as they developed, both before and during a general election.
EC's objectives are to detect, assess and deter the spread of inaccurate information, and to be the official source of information of the federal electoral process.
Facts
EC's monitoring function uses key word searches to uncover information being shared about the federal electoral process. We do not follow individual accounts or individuals.
EC's monitoring function does not filter information based on its origin (foreign or domestic).
20 employees were assigned to the monitoring function during GE44 (compared to 19 in 2019).
During GE44, EC monitored the environment in 15 languages (English, French, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish, Cantonese, Portuguese, Arabic, Hindi, Punjabi, Korean, Somali, Japanese, Kirundi, and Kinyarwanda). During GE43, EC monitored in 21 languages, this experience allowed EC to narrow down the number of languages to focus on languages used most often to share content about Canadian federal elections.
During GE44, EC monitored content on the following platforms:
4Chan, Gab, Bitchute, and more (changes occur frequently, use specific language and culture).
Additional language platforms:
WeChat, Douyin, VK, Naver, expat forums.
Examples of content captured during GE44:
Inaccurate/misleading information about when, where, how to register or vote (significant levels of inaccurate information about special ballot voting).
Inaccurate/misleading information about EC's mandate or operations (significant levels of inaccurate information about vaccine requirements).
Reports of incidents or threats that could impact EC's operations.
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