OTTAWA – Last year, as the U.S. government debated and then followed through on banning TikTok, Republican lawmakers advanced numerous arguments against allowing a hostile foreign power to control a significant medium of public discourse.
They said a social media application owned by someone who is close to an autocratic leader might be used as propaganda.
They said that the amount of data harvested by the app from users’ phones could pose enormous security risks, providing information to the security services of a hostile power.
They said such an app could be used for espionage and tracking down locations of federal employees and contractors.
They said it could be used to conduct influence operations, shaping public opinion or promoting specific narratives.
They said excessive use of the app has been linked to mental health conditions, to the spread of hateful conduct and inappropriate adult content, not to mention outright misinformation.
They said it could be used to promote specific political candidates whose policies favour the interests of a foreign power.
All these concerns are both credible and valid.
What’s more, from a Canadian perspective, all these concerns apply equally to the app formerly known as Twitter. That’s why it’s time to ban Twitter/X in Canada.
It has been two and a half years since the notorious billionaire Elon Musk purchased Twitter, with the site being renamed to X about six months later. Over that time, the site has become more overtly racist, home to increasing levels of misinformation, and has been accused of interfering in several elections.
Under Mr. Musk’s leadership, the social media site has gutted content moderation, unbanned alt-right hatemongers, and become an openly partisan propaganda machine.
Mr. Musk has frequently used spurious claims of “free speech absolutism” as an excuse for his company’s indefensible actions. To be clear, this would not hold up in court, if the United States court system still had a spine.
American Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. famously described the limits of free speech by saying that even the most stringent protection of free expression would not condone shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre.
Canadian freedom of expression law is more robust than that of our southern neighbour, placing reasonable limits on speech and banning incitement to violence more explicitly.
Under Mr. Musk’s reign at the company, Twitter/X has become a theatre megaphone usable exclusively for shouting “fire,” and no reasonable jurisprudence would defend it, inside or outside the United States.
What Twitter/X has done under the guidance of Mr. Musk is no conduct that the Canadian government — or the Canadian people — would tolerate if they were conducted by a corporation that was aligned with, say, the government of China.
It should be noted, of course, that Mr. Musk and his economic interests are inseparable from the current regime occupying the White House. The integration between the ownership of Twitter/X and the Trump Administration is far more complete than the relationship between TikTok’s corporate owner, BiteDance, and China’s leadership. (I doubt Bytedance CEO Zhang Yiming ever performed Musk-like antics in Xi Jinping’s office. For one thing, Mr. Xi has too much dignity to tolerate it.)
More than 14 million Canadians have accounts on the microblogging site, Now, with Mr. Trump openly scheming to annex Canada, they face a swelling tidal wave of pro-Trump MAGA rhetoric.
Given that Mr. Musk is an ally of President Trump, assaults on Canada’s sovereignty are likely to be promoted and persuadable voters targetted for pro-Trump fairy tales. In very real terms, Twitter/X has become a threat to Canada.
Indeed, X has become exactly what the Conservative government or Prime Minister John Diefenbaker was concerned about when it passed the Broadcasting Act in 1958. Under that legislation, foreign ownership of broadcasters is prohibited to ensure that these powerful forms of Canadian discourse are owned and controlled by Canadians.
When the Broadcasting Act was before Parliament, television was in its ascendancy, and policymakers rightly saw the encroachment of U.S. media as a force that was corrosive to our country’s existence.
It should be noted that banning Twitter/X in Canada would send a powerful and important message to other social media corporations.
Facebook, TikTok, and other such sites cannot operate with impunity as they have for too long; each of these organizations profits from the attention of Canadians, and consequently have a responsibility to Canadians. It has been clear for some time that they do not take that responsibility seriously.
It would be wisest for our current Prime Minister to act now, before the next Liberal leader is chosen.
This would mean the ban is fully in effect before an election writ drops. When the United States briefly banned TikTok, it did so at a time when there was no declaration of hostilities from the Government of China, and when there was no specific threat from the country.
Today, Twitter/X, run by an enemy of democracy in the service of an enemy of Canada, is controlled by a government that is explicitly attempting to annex our country.
It’s high time the Canadian government started treating the anti-Canadian propaganda machine Twitter/X as the real threat it is.
Well Brazil did it – then they undid it when Musk acquiesced on legal issues.
Canada should block Twitter/ permanently.
btw, I migrated to Bluesky a while back and I really like it.
Xitter is toxic to humanity.
Yes, do it! Do it now. End X before Elon Musk’s election propaganda machine does to Canada what it has done to the U.S.
It mystifies me why on earth X (Twits) is even allowed?
It’s obviously a platform for disinformation and attacks. This notion that it’s the ‘global town square’ is quaint and laughable.
As well, Facebook is not better and must also be banned.
Social media is, in fact, the worst thing that has ever been created, because it allows idiots, morons, and bots an elevated platform to spread their bile.
Of course, Musk will scream “FREE SPEECH” if it’s banned. I’ve had enough of free speech and the idiots who defend it. Time to deliver them an ultimatum: clean up your act or the gallows.
Like Madame Defarge, I will be happily doing needlepoint each time the noose is tightened.
JM: If memory serves, this is only the second time Madame Defarge has been mentioned by a commenter to this blog. DJC
‘People demand freedom of speech as compensation for the freedom of thought they seldom exercise.’
Soren Kierkegaard
Just a small quibble: “current regime” might best be changed to “corrupt regime”! Whether laws and rules should be followed is not something that most of us get to choose not to do, but the regime of Orange Caligula has no problem with such procedures. If such rules and laws are obsolete, discriminatory, or outright wrong is a matter that needs citizen-wide consideration for change; not be a little coterie of sycophants.
I strongly support this proposal.
April Fools’ Day comes early
Typical pithy comment mocks our esteemed blogger by calling him a fool, yet offers no counter argument or illuminating commentary. Keep yelling at those clouds Doug.
If Canada is to come out ahead in this tariff battle with the US, we will need to think more broadly than just putting tariffs on their goods. We sell a lot more to the US and our economy is smaller, so the pain will be always greater on us.
Where the US is much more vulnerable to retaliation is in services, technology and intangibles. X or Twitter, is a good example of the type of US technology business that also dominates outside of the US. And if we have concerns about TikTok, because of its unclear relationship with the government of China, surely we should have a much great concern about X and its owners strong support of and seemingly close relationship with the Orange Menace, who is doing us economic harm.
Oddly, often those who support Trump expecting to benefit, end up worse off and I feel Musk may end up being another example of that with people now not buying Tesla’s in protest and leaving X. You would think these supporters of his would be smart enough to figure out this recurring pattern, but somehow they keep falling for Trump’s cons. In addition to getting back at one of the key backers of Trump, X has also really become a very poor product since Musk took over, with all the unregulated lies and hate. So frankly we would be better off without it as well.
Fuck off
That you, Mr. Day, or some other Doris? DJC
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Sign the NDP MP, Charlie Angus’ petition to ban X from Canada.
https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-6378
Thanks for the link. It doesn’t call for a full ban (probably can’t until Musk blatantly interferes with the coming election), but it’s a good start.
Thanks, Signed.
Any ban would lead to cries of censorship, cancel culture and wokeism. How about we just drive down south and unplug the beast?
Or just ignore it. Censorship is always wrong
…when the censorship is aimed at your tribe.
Let them “cry” all they want. They’re acting like entitled teenagers with no sense that the world doesn’t revolve around them. Just put them in their rooms and close the door and put on your head set.
Great idea David. Here’s hoping that the current government does exactly what you’ve suggested here.
Well said, DJC. Unfortunately I do not foresee this happening. For quite some time I’ve believed that when the dust settles after the collapse of society (or WWIII, whatever comes first) future historians will single out social media, along with our overreliance on technology, as one of the main culprits of our doom. The other culprit will be the spineless politicians that stood by and allowed it all to happen.
On the topic of Social Media, many people may not know that all students and their families, as well as teachers and education assistants (if any are left when the strike is over) are using “Google” to communicate sensitive information. Personal data is collected about everyone, and stored somewhere. Many of the teachers I know have expressed concerns that this data is not secure, but so far, EPSB, ATA, and our Minister in charge of Education, MLA Mr. Nicolaides, seem unconcerned.
Right on, David.
Let’s have more censorship. After all, Oceania’s enemy has always been Eurasia, hasn’t it?
We don’t let people publish the protocols of the elders of Zion either. Canada has reasonable limits on what people with limited cognitive resources call “free speech”. Famously, as is being demonstrated by an alberta millionaire who is suing a paramedic for libel, we also have strong prohibitions against hate speech. As far as X The everything app is concerned, in addition in the endless ways it is used in the first two instances to flout Canadian law, I don’t believe there is a provision in the charter that guarantees foreign publishers the right to publish in Canada, ridiculous, infantile, false, hate speech notwithstanding.
Finally I have to say, love the Orwell quote, that’s a highschool book, you just graduate to long pants ? Learning how to stand on your hind legs now ?
an excellent point Mr. Climenhaga! Better late than never.
Agree totally. I decided Twitter was not a place I wanted to be when Musk bought it and wrecked it. If you’re still on that platform, you need to ask yourself why.
You have made a compelling case, David. It is unfortunate that those who disagree with you (Doug, Doris & Eastern Rebellion) didn’t bother to try to counter your excellent argument, rather than just using profanity or sarcasm.
Bob: Doug is Doug, a real person at least. I doubt that the pseudonymous ER or “Doris” are. If they’re anything, they’re probably a couple of little $#/+s working in the Alberta Premier’s Office. DJC
I have largely abandoned ‘X’, purging my ‘following’ list to the bare bones. But there are a few accounts that I feel I must follow there, because they are (1) important to me and my loved ones, and (2) unlikely to leave ‘X’ or join another platform, whether it be Mastodon or Bluesky.
These include my two local municipalities, the City of Grande Prairie @CityofGP and the County of Grande Prairie No. 1 @CountyofGP … Alberta Emergency Alerts and the BC Wildfire Service (we live less than an hour’s drive from the BC border) … Alberta Health Services’ main corporate account and their North Zone account … and a couple of others.
We simply don’t feel it would be prudent not to be following these institutions on ‘X’, since they remain active there, and for political reasons probably won’t leave that site.
I agree, Jerry, and for similar reasons I have kept my X account, although I haven’t bothered to pare it down. I use it to announce publication of new AlbertaPolitics.ca posts (largely throttled by the Musk-o-rithm) and also to protect my handle. As for Bluesky, you should try it. It is so Twitter like it is almost like the old days. DJC
Already there :-).
X is so toxic. How did people live without it?
Two things ; the last time I was on Twitter was around the time of the George Floyd uprisings, one of the last things I remember seeing in real time is the Minneapolis police detachment going up in flames.
Since then nearly everyone I know has left the app as it slowly dissolved in on itself in endless cycles of enshittification, even before it was bought by this South African shitgibbon. The benefit to my mental health has been incalculable. I really suggest to anyone who can; just cancel your account, delete the app. It’s mostly bots now anyway (something like 65-80%, right ?) it will be good for you. Additionally, Elon bought Twitter to be popular and the continuing mass exodus of the platform bothers him, you know it does what with his subtweeting his own tweets from his pathetic burner accounts, and banning anyone who offers a mild criticism (or maybe posts the photo of him hobnobbing with Ghislaine Maxwell he’s tried many times to purge from
The internet ). Obviously you’re not going to buy a Tesla, boycott X, it will be good for you and bad for Elon.
I could say a lot more about Twitter, I was a prolific user and I have thought about it a lot since I left, the quality of discourse etc. Ultimately I feel that social media in itself has been a net negative, but it’s not like these platforms were created to liberate humanity, they were created to make money, and were harnessed to project influence. The extremely short (originally just 128 characters) format does not allow for real intellectual engagement and the constant flood of dopamine does a pretty good job of covering that up, in my opinion, based on my experience.
One final point, I’m old enough to remember and have been very online when “the great firewall of China” was a constant talking point. At the time it was alleged the dastardly communists were doing it so they could keep their iron stranglehold on the Chinese people who so badly want to be American. At the time the Chinese said they thought it was likely to be used for espionage, and they would rather develop their own made in china technology anyway. Fast forward twenty years and a few hundred thousand Wikileaks and what do you know? The US government HAS been spying on literally everyone, Twitter itself has been used in at LEAST half a dozen regime change operations that have utterly destroyed those countries, and Chinese tech companies are not only really the only ones flourishing independent of the US, they’re destroying the Americans at this point.
Seems like a good idea to kick all these companies out, or at least regulate them in some meaningful fashion. As someone else has already pointed out, Brasília has already accomplished the latter.
“Freedom of the press, as long as you own one.” This is what happens when the interests of private property take over the interests of the public. But this is not so much the problem of an individual, in this case Musk or Trump or whoever comes along next, as it is the gullible public who consume the misinformation and disinformation precisely manufactured for them.
Certainly a good idea. Its not like we couldn’t survive without tick toc. Personally never thought it was worth signing on for. Recently signed onto Facebook to try to locate a couple of people, and found them but there isn’t any need to use it.
None of these systems provide any thing which increases the quality of my life. if they’re going to impede a fair and secure election, ban them. We don’t need all that shit.
Funny stuff. The notion that the effects of yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre can be equated with those of MAGA or Prog propaganda being disseminated online is a puzzler. I find it amusing that “centrists” are longing for that rational, middle-of-the-road, “adults in the room” consensus we used to have in the good old days, when the consensus included everything that has to be cancelled today. It included giving the internet to private ownership after it was built by the US government as a function of their pursuit of surveillance technology arising from their post-1947 global counter-insurgency. Peter Thiel, Alex Karp and Elon Musk have been Welfare Queens (to coin a phrase from the ol’ Gipper) for two decades, having been funded by In-Q-Tel, the Central Intelligence Agency’s venture capital firm. Sean Parker, Facebook’s first president, was recruited by the CIA at the age of sixteen after he had proven to be a prodigious hacker of government databases.
On the subject of the “great consensus”, the global counterinsurgency and free speech, Obummer admitted in 2009 that the US and British, our partners in the Superfriends Good Guys World-saver team, overthrew the lawful sovereign government of Iran in 1953. Macron acknowledged in 2024 that the French had murdered National Liberation Front leader Larbi Ben M’hidi while the Algerian was in custody in 1957. Still can’t quite nail down who killed Lumumba, Dag Hammarskjöld, or Martin Luther King, for that matter but, thankfully, we did not have social media to spread vicious commie lies about the Good Guys back in the pre-interwebs Good Guy era and we were given an appropriate amount of time to reorganize our feelings about states interfering in the affairs and lifespans of others, so that we could come to terms with these kinds of misunderstandings.
I’m going to vote “NO” on the banning of X.
‘Way back when ICQ, Paltalk and other chatrooms were a thing, and the internet was the Wild Wild West– some of us would get together to raid KKK rooms and those horrid Evangelical Hate rooms. We’d only need very few of us to run larger groups of them, off. We’d lay bets, waltz in, be very respectful and polite and ask pointed questions we *knew* would cause them to in-fight and implode. Then we’d quietly lurk for the next hour and watch them go ballistic with each other because we didn’t respond to any of their attacks.
Because when hate is all ya got, sooner or later–ya turn on each other. And they couldn’t blame us because we just asked a series of innocent questions then shut up.
That is why X is such a flamewar, right now and is imploding before our eyes.
Now when the haters brigaded *our chat* rooms, we didn’t ban them. We asked questions. “Where did you get this information? What would happen if…? etc etc” Sooner or later, they’d get frustrated and leave to form their own hate rooms…rinse and repeat. Our chatrooms stayed open, some for years–theirs couldn’t last a few hours. We changed some minds and the rest of the damage, they did to themselves.
Same thing, it’s just taking a bit longer.
That is X right now. Banning it just plays into their hand. More and more are questioning and it’s becoming more and more toxic by the day. X is supported by Tesla and Tesla is dying. Sooner or later, Musk won’t be able to keep X, open. It’s very likely to die a natural death when it can’t evolve.
If it lasts another two years, we might wanna revisit this option but at present there’s an uprising of the working class and common sense finally building in the USA and they’re starting to flood to BlueSky and other platforms for information because their first point of contact, is X.
As we learned back then:
Don’t feed their crybully complex.
Use their attention.
Don’t let them use yours.