Foreign interference shows need for Canada to get serious on media literacy: advocate

As federal parties craft the scope of a possible inquiry into foreign interference, Canada's media-literacy charity argues governments and schools need to do a better job of preventing citizens from being manipulated by hostile states.

As federal parties craft the scope of a possible inquiry into foreign interference, Canada's media-literacy charity argues governments and schools need to do a better job of preventing citizens from being manipulated by hostile states.

"We are going to need a media-literate populace," said Matthew Johnson, education director with MediaSmarts, a non-profit aimed at boosting critical thinking among Canadians.

"Whatever the source of disinformation, but certainly including foreign interference, digital media literacy really is both the first and last line of defence."

In May, as wildfires in Alberta hit a peak, images of blazes from years past spread on Twitter, with false claims that entire towns had been destroyed. That same month, a phoney image of the Pentagon on fire circulated, with fabricated claims that an explosion had occurred in Washington.

The two claims could be easily disproven by simple Google searches, such as a reverse-image search. But Johnson noticed both were widely amplified, which he agues is an indication of how easily foreign actors can disrupt Canadian democracy.

David Johnston, the former special rapporteur on foreign interference, warned before his resignation that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service is concerned about foreign states putting out "disinformation or divisive content" that influences how citizens vote, or even dissuades them from wanting to cast a ballot.

"The openness of our democracy and media also provides an ideal forum for foreign actors that wish to disrupt our democratic process, often using social media and other mass communication technologies," the former governor general wrote in his only public report.