X Threatens Our Democracy. Canada Should Ban It
X Threatens Our Democracy. Canada Should Ban It
Summary:
Concerns About Social Media: The author draws parallels between concerns that led to discussions about banning TikTok in the U.S. and the current state of X (formerly Twitter).
X as a Threat: The author argues that X, under Elon Musk's ownership, poses a threat to Canadian democracy.
Increased Racism and Misinformation: The platform is described as having become more racist and a source of increasing misinformation since Musk's acquisition.
Content Moderation: Musk's leadership is criticized for gutting content moderation, unbanning alt-right figures, and turning the platform into a partisan propaganda machine.
"Free Speech Absolutism": Musk's defense of his actions using "free speech absolutism" is dismissed as untenable.
Canadian Law: Canadian freedom of expression law is noted to be more robust than that of the U.S., allowing for reasonable limits on speech.
Foreign Influence: The author suggests that X's current conduct would not be tolerated if it were aligned with a government like China.
Musk and Trump: Musk's close ties to Donald Trump and the potential for pro-Trump propaganda targeting Canadian voters are highlighted as a specific threat.
Echoes of the Broadcasting Act: The author draws a parallel to the Broadcasting Act of 1958, which restricted foreign ownership of broadcasters to protect Canadian discourse.
Message to Social Media Companies: Banning X would send a message to other social media companies about their responsibilities to Canadians.
Call to Action: The author urges the current Prime Minister to ban X before the next election.
Trump's annexation comments: Notes Trump's comments about annexing Canada.
X as an Anti-Canadian Propaganda Machine: Concludes that X should be treated as a real threat.
You guys should ban it, if for no other reason it would be very funny to do so
Please do. It was a good idea for the US to ban TikTok due to Chinese security law, and of course the worst man on earth granted it a reprieve.
Also, when are you guys going to denaturalize Musk? He cheated on his US citizenship, so I hold out a shred of hope that after his rampage is ended and it all wraps up, we'll revoke his citizenship as fraudulent and he'll have to return to a failed state that's following in Robert Mugabe's anti-white race war footsteps. Can't think of a better place on this earth for a Nazi to belong to.
Yes, but first your government should operate a mastodon node and give all of your ministries and employees time to migrate.
Germany declared Facebook and X to be national security risks, so they've been running their own mastodon instances for years
That's awesome! Yes each country, region, municipality should have their own instance. I've spun up a Lemmy instance and going to try and make grassroots in roads by going to local businessses and trying to get them to sign up.
Its a chicken and the egg dilemma. Trying to get users is hard, but if there are businesses that interact with local users then there's something more whole some. Not zucc, musky, or the other broligarchs making pennies on each local interaction. Their power needs to be usurped by the people.
I think one instance per country is sufficient. Maybe per State. But there's really no need for each city to have their own instance
It’s a mixed bag for me, it’s kinda nice that other websites are just filled with absolute degeneracy. By banning it, people will go elsewhere.
Yes it's good on the surface, but echo chambers are near impossible to break. Having everyone on fediverse where there's not perverse incentives to tailor algorithms to keep your engagement could help free some younger minds.
Its still a curated echo chamber and not reflective of the broader society, but its not a broligarch making pennies on each click either. For online social discourse, transparency is key.
Reddit has recently been issue warnings for users that engage (read: upvote) with content construed as inciting violence. Free and open discourse is not tenable on the main platforms (Meta, X, Reddit, etc.) and are being astro-turfed by bots trying to drive wedges in the communities.
Beyond the sensationalized article headline, the key is for politicians and community leaders to leave twitter all together. We don't need to ban it, we need to make twitter obsolete.
I wrote all of the MPs and a lot of the media in Canada saying this. We would not use weapons provided by the opposing side in a traditional, why are we using them in a trade war?
Charlie Angus is doing some heavy lifting. Respect.
We, the undersigned, citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the Government of Canada to transition official government communications away from Twitter/X to more secure, community-regulated platforms that prioritise public safety, accurate information, and accessibility. We encourage the government to explore publicly accountable alternatives, including decentralised networks, to ensure reliable and responsible communication with Canadians. - 5359
We, the undersigned, citizens of Canada, call upon the Government of Canada to:
- Ban the social media platform X on all government agencies' communication channels;
- Ban political candidates at all levels of governments to campaign, promote, disseminate, and share contents or messages under public or official capacity; and
- Publicly encourage private Canadian entities and users to use alternatives to communicate and interact with their audiences. - 6378
Enough signatures means a petition HAS to be presented in the HoC and a government response MUST be tabled. The "revoke Elon's citizenship" petition that got popular is the most symbolic gesture of these 3, but I think they're all for the same main purpose: make our elected reps talk openly and on the record about the seig heil in the room. If they legislate deplatforming his main propaganda arm, that's just gravy imo.
Please.
Why not instead flood X with tons of pro-Canadian content/shitposting (for great justice)? Maybe they could band together with other countries & do an all-out offensive against X, overwhelming their servers?
I'd bring out popcorn for that.
The owner (fElon) could easily adjust the algorithm to basically not give anything that's opposite of his interests any traction. The best solution is to just dump Xitter and move to fediverse.
SIGN THE PETITION! BAN TWITTER!!!
💯 the only correct response. It’s a hostile entity undermining your country.
Nobody should be using Titter.... Sorry I meant Twitter. Please continue to use Titter.
This would be like if Canada got rid of all national newspapers, news broadcasters and news organizations and instead handed the responsibility of delivering the news to the people of Canada to one company owned by one billionaire who isn't even Canadian.
We would never allow that to happen .... but the fact that X exists and has so much power over people ... we essentially made this possible.
Alas, we're trying it South of the border. The review: 0/10 would not recommend. :-(
I don’t think they should ban it but ever since they are forcing a sign in to view anything they should stop using it for all levels of government.
And Post Media
Absolutely, not sure why we allow an institutionalized foreign influence campaign like this. It's actively undermining our nation
I don't think banning things is the right approach. That is censorship & bolsters fascism, not stop it. Education is the most important. If you're worried about misinformation, then educate people about it.
I would have agreed with you before I'm not sure about that any more. Musk and his oligarch buddies are in open war against the working class at this point and social media is their primary weapon.
If not outright ban, at the very least insist on heavy regulations. Allowing them to shape the discourse is a sure fire way to lose this battle.
banning creates un intended consequences, and i agree, grass roots boycott is a better approach here
I'm not for adding a great Internet firewall. Just see it for what it is, advertise against it instead. Adding a great Canadian firewall is going to introduce other issues.
Nah. You shouldn't be able to say Nazi shit in Canada without repercussions. The owner of twitter is a Nazi. It should be banned here. The free market of ideas is a lie told by Nazis to make it legal for them to recruit others into Nazism.
You're not really arguing against the point. My point is I don't agree with a firewall on Canada's internet. I believe it should be free and open.
TwitterX is a different thing. Go after the business instead. The real enemy is lack of education. Having a firewall on Canada is not going to prevent people from being convinced to be Nazis.
All anonymous social media threatens democracy.
I've done my best over the years, but regular people can't compete with the resources of a nation-state that decides to go on a social media influence campaign. No matter how right you are, it's near impossible to win over public opinion while having 20 times your numbers arguing against you, bandwagoning, and "helping" you by creating easily defeatable strawmans.
It's really hard to be outnumbered in an argument and then also argue with your "allies" that no, that's not what you meant. And when the average third party reads over all of that, what are the odds they pick out your small part? You need those odds to be around 70% or more, and they're just not.
And that's if you don't just get banned by hostile moderators. I don't know if you're aware of how most moderators are chosen, but it's not a job interview. And if it is a job interview, it's in Mandarin or Russian. Even if it's a legit mod, they're going to be one of those average third parties that have been subject to all those other arguments.
Today someone said, "Burn the (US) Democratic party to the ground". That's so hard to deal with. There are two parties in the US, and you chose that statement?!? The prevailing sentiment spreads. There are valid criticisms to make of the Democratic party, absolutely. Those criticisms needs to be targeted, well-researched, and specific if they're going to be helpful. So you're one or ten or a hundred people trying to improve the shitshow. Meanwhile there's a mix of natural sentiment, seeded sentiment, and fake sentiment making arguments all over the spectrum for your side, and their number in the tens or hundreds or thousands. And that's before you get to the actual opposing side, which has its own, similar nuances and outnumbering tactics.
Oh, and don't forget, you're not immune to the tide. They'll feed you false information that aligns with your arguments just to discredit you. Something like "Lottery winner pays 70% in tax. Only billionaire to be taxed properly." That's not how that works. They pay the same 37% or whatever top marginal rate everyone else does (and then state).
I think it's possible to have pseudo-anonymous social media, but some authority has to know who you are and where you're from. The giveaways of propaganda Twitter posts with Russian flags were a clumsy mistake and unlikely to continue voluntarily. Whoever that authority is will be uncomfortable for us, but the only reason we're comfortable without verification is that we're used to it.
there is no way I'd give up anonymity online.
that meme that circulated a couple days ago that showed all the ways bumper stickers make you a target is a great illustration. if my name was tied to everything I said online, I wouldn't say anything, since I'd just be making myself a target.
the solution is to spread media literacy, which is a pretty oblique attack on the problem, but it's a lasting solution.
It's more like a trusted authority would know your name and your pseudonym, and only your pseudonym and your country or county would display online.
They'd make sure you're not using ten accounts to reinforce each other, and make sure you're representing the country you say you are. Ideally, like medical records, the more detailed information would be secret.
Change our laws to make the social network responsible for what is posted if it is foreign owned. Canadian owned can have the shield. That'll kill them, fb, reddit and the rest in Canada and we'll see homegrown replacements take shape. Governments at all levels should not be using social media, they should have central websites/apps where they can post information that can be spread by RSS. Canadians would be free to repost to any network they want to discuss but the government, imo shouldn't be on these networks.
Outright bans don't work, viable alternatives and proper public messaging about who owns the platforms might do the trick.
Similarly for news and media outlets, too much Canadian news is controlled by American companies.
Outright ban is not good. They need to give people an off ramp. Move officials to other platforms. Promote those accounts. Release news first on mastodon or bluesky and part article writers to use that screenshot over the x post.