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No organized influence was exerted from outside the province’s borders, it found. However, Albertans seemed keen to use those tactics themselves.

“(We) identified communities that demonstrated a suspicious account creation pattern that is indicative of troll or bot activity,” the report says. “It was mainly comprised of supporters of the United Conservative Party.

“The pattern was not identified within communities of supporters of the Alberta Liberal Party or Alberta New Democratic Party.”

The report bases this conclusion on the large number of social media accounts created by UCP supporters in the first months of 2019. That analysis was combined an evaluation of the behaviour of those accounts and the network they were part of.

“These are indications of likely inauthentic behaviour.”

The report adds that third-party lobby groups were also “spreading disinformation online” before the balloting.

The United Conservative Party, led by Jason Kenney, won the April vote.

Bots are social media programs designed to artificially generate social media posts that appear as if written by an actual person. Trolls are social media users who intentionally initiate online conflict so as to provoke emotional responses and derail discussions.

Bots and trolls can be used together to amplify their effect.

The report suggests that although false postings were being systematically disseminated on social media, they weren’t central to the debate taking place among voters. It discounts previous estimates that as many as one-third of postings during the campaign were from bots.