Article content

A wire story by The Canadian Press’s Joan Bryden arrives over the transom. Let me quote briefly from Bryden’s copy, as an exercise in describing how news sausage is sometimes ground. “An international report says Canada has taken ‘commendable’ steps to safeguard this fall’s federal election from foreign interference. But the report says this country needs to do more to regulate social media giants and should impose ‘major sanctions’ on those that fail to control fake news and other forms of disinformation on their platforms.”

An international report says Canada is vulnerable to fake news! Food for thought. But as I was mulling over this dread warning about sensationalistic information from questionable sources, a skeptical question came to mind: what is “an international report” exactly?

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Colby Cosh: Fake news about fake news that wasn't fake doesn't justify online censorship Back to video

Bryden goes on to tell us, sort of: “The report,” she writes, “is part of a series of assessments conducted by the Centre for International Governance Innovation and the Transatlantic Commission on Elections Integrity for the Alliance of Democracies Federation.” Show of hands: how many of you found it possible to read that sentence without falling asleep? Don’t worry, you weren’t meant to read it — just to absorb its general miasma of seriousness.