Roundup: Hoping to master the algorithm

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As I often rail about terrible government communications and Parliament being reduced to a content studio for social media clips, I was struck by two stories over the weekend. The first was a look into the Liberals’ trying to use social media more effectively to bring back Millennial and Gen Z voters, which means staffers are directing their ministers to tailor content more specifically to these platforms, and ministers using influencers more to get their messages across. While I’m less concerned about the latter because I do think that can be helpful and savvy, it’s the former that concerns me more because we have too many politicians chasing the algorithm as it is, and the algorithm is bad and fickle. If you listen to Aaron Reynolds of Effin’ Birds fame talk about using social media to build his business, he will warn that tailoring your business to specific algorithms is doomed to fail because those algorithms change and can wipe you out, and politicians chasing the algorithm is not only cringe-worthy, it’s frankly bad for media literacy and democracy in general.

The other story was that Conservative MP Branden Leslie produced a Facebook video chock-full of fake news clips that purport to show a future where Trudeau has resigned, but amidst the complaints that using news branding for this kind of deep-fake content is problematic and deeply unethical, Conservatives are defending it as perfectly justified because “nobody could mistake it for reality.” This from the party that is actively building a dystopian alternate reality built on disinformation for their followers to believe in, because they want them to forgo things like critical thinking in order to simply swallow whatever falsehoods the party wants to tell them, and now they’re asserting that people won’t be taken by the very falsehoods this video perpetuates, after they have been training that same audience to swallow falsehoods? Sorry, but you can’t have it both ways. This is nothing good, and a sign that there is no moral compass in the party whatsoever.

Throughout this, I am reminded of something Paul Wells said last week that really struck a chord with me:

I think the social-media revolution has constrained government’s attempts to explain themselves, and radicalized citizens’ responses, more than it’s helped anyone do anything good. And I think most political organizations’ attempts to master these tools end up looking like the tools are, quite thoroughly, mastering the organizations.

This is exactly right, and it’s why I worry that the Liberals trying to push more to social media to reach those Gen-Zers is going to make this actively worse, while the Conservatives are already using the worst features of these platforms to their most unethical extent. This is the state of political communications these days, and it’s very, very scary, and it’s dragging democracy down with it.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians bombed a big box store complex in Kharkiv on Saturday, killing 14, wounding 43, with 16 others still unaccounted for, even though Ukrainian forces are pushing them back from areas outside of the city.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau announced his plans to be in France for D-Day anniversary commemorations next week, along with members of the Royal Family.
  • While members of the government are acknowledging the American tariffs on Chinese-made EVs, no one in government is promising to do the same (yet).
  • CSIS is warning that “inspired lone actors” may attack Pride festivities or other LGBTQ+ spaces this summer (because look at the rhetoric out there).
  • A recent CBSA evaluation shows the need for better training and more effective analytical tools for their border intelligence operations.
  • There are growing concerns about increasing use of AI tools like deepfakes to create hate content, whether antisemitic or Islamophobic.
  • The Star fact-checked Poilievre’s bullshit claims about drug “legalisation” in BC, and found it all to be false, (not that it matters because facts no longer matter).
  • Blaine Higgs is scandalised that sexual education groups use the same language teenagers do, and plans to ban them from the province (because that’ll help).
  • Jason Markusoff delves into some polling data about how Danielle Smith is somehow avoiding the blame for files she’s dropping the ball on.
  • Shannon Proudfood likens the parliamentary playing for social media to be akin to the early days of “reality” television.
  • Althia Raj is disappointed that the Liberals have started going negative on Poilievre.
  • Susan Delacourt and Matt Gurney debate how much influence foreign events such as a Trump win could have on the next federal election.
  • My weekend column calls out the guys on the political right who are butthurt that additional perspectives are being applied to Sir John A Macdonald’s legacy.

Odds and ends:

For National Magazine, I wrote about Friday’s Supreme Court of Canada decision upholding the law about not disclosing sexual history in assault cases.

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