What Springfield, Ohio, can teach Canadians about digital mis- and disinformation

Digital disinformation can be dangerous and too often, racialized ethnocultural communities bear the brunt of it.

Disinformation during election time certainly gets media attention, but it is the everyday disinformation that we need to pay attention to. We need to wake up to see how this near constant flow — the ‘slow drip of polarizing and illiberal narratives’ — erodes Canadian values and social cohesion.

Understandably, we tend to pay attention to disinformation campaigns and influence operations from foreign threat actors during democratic elections. We know foreign interference has already had a demonstrable impact on recent elections in the United States, France and Germany.

But as the preliminary report from the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference noted, Canada is not and will not be immune to this growing threat. In fact, foreign interference in Canada’s democratic and electoral processes, including the use of disinformation, is expected to play an even larger role in future election cycles.

Thankfully there is growing awareness to this problem; one poll estimates that 84 per cent of Canadians are concerned about disinformation and potential impact on democracy. Canadians are also aware of the potential weaponization of emergent technologies and capabilities with 80 per cent of Canadians indicating concern about the abuse of AI and the spread of AI-generated disinformation in the lead-up to the 2025 federal election.

But, while this growing awareness and attention is positive, we need to pay attention to disinformation in everyday contexts, to help build societal resilience and prevent social polarization.

After all, the rapidity and reach of digital information across platform and geographic boundaries means disinformation is also transferred between and beyond election cycles. Indeed, the cross-platform movement of content as well as the capacity to scale up the disinformation content using generative AI will make this even more challenging to combat and to react to.

Take for example the recent events in the U.S., where targeted disinformation against the Haitian American community amplified by former president Trump and his running mate as part of their campaign, explicitly connected xenophobic disinformation about the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio, to the larger debate around illegal migration and immigration reform. These baseless rumours have led to very real security concerns for Haitian-Americans and the local community, with school closures and the mayor invoking emergency powers.

As a canadian, most canadians i see online (or at least users pretending to be canadian) seem to think that disinformation is cool and fun, and after seeing the example set by the us republican party over these past 9 years, they are excited to follow suit and use it to the advantage of their corporate leaders.

The whole r/canada russian/chinese/american propaganda chamber masquerading as honest, unbiased canadians in order to spread disinformation about “what canadians really think” and radicalize people with low critical thinking skills and internet-literacy is the icing on the cake.

The only way that right wingers know how to win elections is through misinformation, and they saw the example set south of the border as a learning opportunity and example, and are now following it to a T.

The average canadian hasnt learned shit about digital misinformation beyond the *”look how stupid those americans are for falling for misinformation! I’m way too smart to fall for that stuff, so i dont need to look out for it or be on any sort of alert”* while the digital misinformers have only gotten better at feeding into their superiority complex and using it to fool them 🙁

I work facility ops for a city in the gta and the majority of my colleagues spend their shifts on tiktok and insta and snap and reddit and all literally firmly believe that covid was a hoax by the liberal government to force them to get vaccinated. They all still talk about how they *“only got vaccinated because they were forced to in order to keep their jobs”* but *”if they could go back they’d totally just skip the vaccine and forge fake immunization records instead”*. They repeat this shit to eachother like it’s some sort of brag… And they’re all voting conservative to “stick it to” the “tyrannical” justin trudeau as “payback”.

Looking at you Ontario. The “they’re pooping on the beach” has a whole “they’re eating the pets”-vibe to it.