Article content

In 2019, an election year federally and in Alberta, what if we could we all resolve to be better consumers of online content? Could we train to become sommeliers of social media news shares, carefully discerning the provenance of a piece and determining whether it is authentic or just swill — or even poison?

The implications of not taking more care in terms of what we absorb and then distribute online can’t be overstated. Information is being used as a weapon not just against parties and politicians but also against our sense of trust in institutions and our social harmony.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or This election year, you are the first line of defence against misinformation Back to video

A report by the Oxford Internet Institute‘s Computational Propaganda Research project, released in mid-December, said Russia used social media posts to suppress the African-American and Hispanic vote during the 2016 American elections. Russia’s Internet Research Agency used the segmentation of advertising markets offered by social media platforms such as Facebook to tell those voters that they should boycott the election. It encouraged right-wing voters to vote for Donald Trump and shared posts with them designed to kick up anger around minorities and immigration. The Russians also sought to drive a wedge among liberal voters, trying to “reduce trust in the political system.”