Elections Canada has released this resource with some common bits of false or misleading content about elections on social media: https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=res&dir=dis&document=index&lang=e
We plan on pinning this resource, and we are proposing the following rules:
edit: Thank you for the feedback everyone, these adjusted rules will be enforced:
- Posts or comments with inaccurate or misleading information from this list will be removed, and users are encouraged to report them
- Repeatedly posting such content will result in a ban from the community until April 28 (at a minimum)
So far we haven’t noticed any serious issues, but we want to get ahead of anything that might come up
- https://www.canada.ca/en/campaign/online-disinformation.html (my favourite — but be careful with the “fact-checking accounts” video, it is a bit out of date, since people can buy verification tags now)
- https://www.canada.ca/en/privy-council/news/2025/03/detecting-and-reporting-disinformation.html
- https://www.cyber.gc.ca/en/guidance/how-identify-misinformation-disinformation-and-malinformation-itsap00300
You can also see these guides by the Government of Canada:
- Online Disinformation
- Detecting and reporting disinformation, by the Privy Council Office
- How to identify misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation, by the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security
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Why would repeatedly posting electoral misinformation during an election only result in a ban until the election was over? I don’t think these people would become good actors just because the election ended.
I think some spreaders of misinformation are victims and not intentional bad actors. Banning them from legitimate communities only pushes them further from reality which is bad for our society. Telling the difference between useful idiots and bad actors is hard, so i think the general policy should be a warning and a ban until election day, and having the mods reserve the right to be harsher for clear bad actors.
There’s definitely people who unwittingly spread misinformation, but the rule wasn’t for people who just post once or twice, but people who have posted misinformation and been warned previously multiple times. That’s not a mistake at that point, that’s a pattern of behavior.
Will we be restricting the posting of links to foreign owned media?
To what extent? Do we have an issue with Reuters or AP now? How about Canadian commentators like Steve Boots on foreign YouTube?
I’m having a hard time envisioning a rule around this that can be enforced equitably, but we can equitably reject content regardless of source, based on established merits of its substance.
Technically Reuters is not foreign owned
Well…shit… that’s cool!
I think we also need to remove brigading posts. I am new to lemmy so not sure how much brigading happens here.
That’s fair, can you link some of the posts? You can also DM me, or @[email protected]
There isn’t much brigading since it gets dealt with, but it’s not impossible
