Ottawa –
Canada’s foreign affairs department has expressed concern that limited access to data and evolving tactics by adversaries are weakening its ability to counter foreign disinformation online, according to a newly released memo.
The memorandum, filed Wednesday at a federal inquiry into foreign interference, noted that Canada led the G7 Rapid Response Mechanism, which identifies and responds to threats to democracy through open-source data analysis.
The memo, purportedly addressed to then Deputy Foreign Minister Marta Morgan, warned that the ability to analyse this data had been “increasingly constrained” in recent months, primarily due to the “sudden and unexpected denial” of authorised access to data from social media platforms.
It is unclear when the memo was written, but it is believed to have been written sometime between the summer of 2020 and October 2022, around the time Morgan retires from public office.
The Canadian Rapid Response Mechanism, based in the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, produces open data analytics that chart foreign interference trends, strategies and tactics. The unit uses commercially available and in-house tools to monitor cyberspace for signs of state-sponsored information operations.
Authorized access to a social media platform typically involves a third-party commercial provider accessing the platform’s application programming interface (API), according to the memo.
“Social media platforms’ decisions about terms of service and access to APIs are business decisions and should not be subject to considerations of national security or national interest.”
Continued denial of access to the data will hinder RRM Canada’s ability to provide policymakers with “situational awareness and insights into potential foreign interference online on foreign policy priorities,” the memo added.
“Our ability to support whole-of-government efforts to secure Canada’s elections will be correspondingly limited. Our international reputation as a leader in combating online disinformation will also be damaged.”
The memo specifically cited concerns about access to data from Facebook and Twitter, now known as X.
The memo said that lack of access to data, combined with “evolving tactics used by adversaries to blur the lines between domestic and foreign actors and overt and covert messaging,” makes it increasingly difficult for RRM Canada and other researchers conducting similar work around the world to identify foreign government-sponsored online activity.
“This challenge is exacerbated by the pandemic-related infodemic and the proliferation of social media platforms exploited by our adversaries.”
The memo adds that RRM Canada is exploring other ways to continue to fulfill its mandate, including “increasing engagement with social media platforms,” possibly through the G7.
The department also said it would seek to expand collaboration with civil society partners and academics to support real-time information and data exchange.
Current international affairs officials who appear at a federal inquiry next week are likely to be questioned about the memo.
The committee’s most recent hearings have examined agencies’ capabilities to detect, deter and counter foreign interference, with an emphasis on various agency practices and the experiences of diaspora communities.
A scholar who studies the flow of information in an era of falsehoods and polarized views told the committee on Wednesday that it is extremely difficult to measure the impact of media content on people’s behavior.
Taylor Owen, an associate professor at McGill University, said behavior isn’t determined by specific content.
Rather, he said, it is influenced by the sum of an individual’s experiences, beliefs, values, politics and overall media consumption.
Owen is co-principal researcher at the Media Ecosystem Observatory, a joint project between McGill University and the University of Toronto that combines large-scale online data analysis with survey research.
In interviews with advisers to the committee in August, Owen and others involved in the effort said limitations on access to social media data meant MEOs could not obtain certain types of valuable information without incurring impractical costs.
“Instead, researchers, including MEO, will need to obtain more limited data through their own means,” a summary of the interviews provided to the committee said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 25, 2024.
