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 Musk’s leadership, the social media site has gutted content moderation, unbanned alt-right hatemongers, and become an openly partisan propaganda machine.
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 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 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 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, ByteDance, 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 Trump openly scheming to annex Canada, they face a swelling tidal wave of pro-Trump MAGA rhetoric.
Given that 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.
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