(OTTAWA) Cybersecurity experts suggested to Justice Paul Rouleau on Tuesday that he should view social media as the “central nervous system” of the entire “freedom convoy” protest in Ottawa last winter.
The Commission on the state of emergency, chaired by Judge Rouleau, looked Tuesday morning at the role of online disinformation.
The commission must determine whether the federal government was justified in using the Emergencies Act in February to dislodge protesters who had invaded downtown Ottawa and disrupted trade at certain border crossings.
After the “factual phase” of its work, during six weeks of public hearings, the Rouleau commission begins this week the “political phase”, with round tables of experts to support its analysis. On Monday, Judge Rouleau notably heard from jurists on rights and freedoms – including the limits to the right to “peaceful assembly”, guaranteed by the Canadian Charter.
The “political phase” includes testimony about online threats and the role social media played in organizing the protest against COVID-19 public health measures.
Before thousands of trucks began rolling into Ottawa last January, an informal group of protest organizers communicated primarily through TikTok and Facebook, according to testimony heard by the Commission over the past few weeks. Many of them had never met in person before the protest began.
“Social media was the central nervous system of the convoy, and the exploration of its role crosses many fields, such as law, psychology, history, sociology and public policy, to name a few. -uns,” wrote in a report for the commission Emily Laidlaw, Canada Research Chair in Cybersecurity Law at the University of Calgary.
Social media also served to contrast mainstream media narratives and provide a different view of what was happening on the ground, Dax D’Orazio, a political scientist and postdoctoral fellow at Queen’s University, said in a panel discussion. of experts before the committee on Tuesday.
Dax D’Orazio argued that social media permeated almost every aspect of this movement — from fundraising and initial organization to reporting events and circumventing traditional media.
“It was a way to create meaning, to find community and to eventually build momentum for a social and political movement,” he said.
Disinformation and misinformation
The commission started the day with an expert panel on misinformation, disinformation and the role of social media.
Experts testified that regulating misinformation is a difficult prospect, especially since it is not illegal to spread lies.
“It’s legal, but awful,” said M.me Laidlaw during the roundtable. She feels that if the government creates a law that targets legal expression, she is unlikely to make it to constitutional scrutiny.
Experts have defined disinformation as the intentional spreading of false information, while misinformation has been described as people spreading false information that they themselves believe to be true.
It would be difficult to write laws that distinguish between the two, said Jonathon Penney, a lawyer at York University. “It’s a question of intention,” he said.
Panelists also explored the relationship between extremist views and social media, which can provide an echo chamber that serves to confirm people’s existing biases.
Studies have shown that the internet can help entrench extremist values, said Vivek Venkatesh, a professor in the department of education at Concordia University.
People who subscribe to extremist views are increasingly turning to “fringe media” instead of getting their news from traditional sources, said David Morin, a national security expert at the University of Sherbrooke, who s is expressed in French during the panel.
He said “self-taught journalists” associated with these fringe media were present in Ottawa during the convoy protest and produced “alternative news” for viewers.
For example, Morin said some alternative media sources reported that hundreds of thousands of protesters attended the Ottawa protest, while police reports show the actual number was far lower.
The Impact of the Ambassador Bridge
A second panel on the movement of essential goods and services, critical infrastructure and trade corridors told the commission on Tuesday afternoon that 339,275 jobs depend on the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ont., which protesters blocked for six days. in February, halting trade with the United States.
These jobs represent 1.8% of all jobs in Canada, according to a report prepared by economist François Delorme and economics student Florence Ouellet.
The lockdowns have highlighted the vulnerability of some of Canada’s critical infrastructure, which is governed by a patchwork of government and private sector jurisdictions.
If the federal government hopes to protect critical infrastructure through legislation, it needs to be very transparent about what it means by that and what is and is not allowed in the vicinity, said Phil Boyle, a professor of studies at the University of Ottawa – otherwise the law could be overbroad and used to stifle legal dissent.
Coming up with a list of what constitutes critical infrastructure, however, could be tricky, explained Kevin Quigley, director of the MacEachen Institute for Public Policy and Governance at Dalhousie University.
Different infrastructure is essential for different people at different times, he explained, depending on the context. A small bridge that serves as the main route for transporting food to a small community might be considered locally critical, for example.
Ambarish Chandra, professor of economics at the University of Toronto at Scarborough, pointed out that when it comes to Canada’s land border crossings, trade is heavily concentrated in southern Ontario.
If something unexpected were to happen there, the effects could be catastrophic for the whole country, he stressed, adding that Canada could encourage the diversification of truck transport networks to make greater use of border crossings. in Quebec and the Prairies.
The commission has a tight deadline to complete its work: Commissioner Rouleau is due to submit his final recommendations to Parliament in early February.
Policy panels continue Wednesday with national security, emergency and policing experts.