Far-left Canadians are also susceptible to Russian influence

Researchers found that on Twitter, members of the Canadian far left joined those of the far-right to embrace pro-Russian messaging created by a two-year Russian influence campaign.

As the torrent of leaks about possible Chinese interference in Canadian politics seems to have diminished, the uproar over them continues, and the federal government this week tabled a budget containing measures it hopes will deal with such interference.

< p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The budget sets aside C$13.5 million to establish a National Bureau for Combating Foreign Interference, and it will give the Royal Canadian Mounted Police $50 million to counter harassment Canadian immigrants by their authoritarian home country.

Educating the public about foreign influence campaigns that target Canada, a group of researchers published a review this week details of one such campaign: a Russian attempt to use Twitter to shape Canadian public opinion on its invasion of Ukraine. The study held a few surprises for its authors: pro-Russian messages were promoted not only by far-right groups that openly expressed their approval of Russia under President Vladimir V. Putin, but were also broadcast by far-left groups.

Researchers analyzed Twitter data from the year before the invasion and the year after it. From there, they determined that about 90 Twitter accounts — mostly based in Canada and all run by real users, not bots — were responsible for driving a pro-Moscow line that was retweeted or loved by about 200,000 other accounts over those two years.

As they expected, the majority of those 90 key accounts (59%) belong to far-right members, including many supporters of last year's trucking convoys, who have long admired Mr Putin. Less expected, however, was the large number of pro-Russian accounts - 33% - controlled by people the researchers identified as members of the far left. Their messages, according to the researchers, were based less on favoring Mr Putin than on opposing the war and NATO, but they echoed far-right phrases such as "NATO is responsible for the war".

The unintended result, according to the report, is that "the political far left and far right have found common ground: undermine public support for Canada's financial, humanitarian and military assistance to Ukraine".

"What was interesting was that the far left played a much bigger role,” Brian McQuinn, a professor at the University of Regina and co-director of its Center for Artificial Intelligence, Data and Conflict, said. "In Canada, this had not previously been identified."

The paper was also authored by researchers from Digital Public Square, a Toronto-based group that works to improving online privacy, civility, and political engagement; and the University of Maryland's College of Information Studies. The work was partially funded by the governments of Canada and the United States.

The influencer campaign has adapted many of its messages for a Canadian audience with messages such as "Canada's foreign policy is controlled by Canadian Ukrainians" and "Canadian sanctions are responsible for inflation and rising energy costs". Chrystia Freeland, the Deputy Prime Minister who is of Ukrainian descent, fluent in the language and once living in Ukraine, was a particular target.(In her other capacity as Minister of Finance, Ms. Freeland presented the budget containing the measures to counter foreign interference.)

Data analysis...