Canadian experts have new concerns over misinformation, user rights on social media

A turbulent few weeks for social media companies X and Meta have raised new questions over user rights online and how well Canadians are protected in the digital world.

Recently, Meta announced it would be eliminating its fact-checking program, and X announced it would be removing the account of a Vancouver strip club for a joke made on its marquee.

Robin Bondy, a public relations professor at Kwantlen Polytechnic University says the changes are indicative of a political shift of social media platforms.

“We all saw Mark Zuckerberg, who just so happens to have donated a billion dollars to Trump’s inauguration fund, sitting among other major tech billionaires at the inauguration.” Bondy told 1130 NewsRadio. “We saw Zuckerberg announce that he would be replacing fact checking systems which have been heavily criticized by Trump over the belief that they disproportionately target right wing content with systems in favor of prioritizing speech.

Bondy says it’s now up to the user to fully evaluate the content they see.

“It’s more important than ever that we stay up to date on media trends, understand how algorithms influence the content we see, you know, and, and discuss current events and media trends with other people to gain different perspectives,” Bondy said.

This week, concerns around account sovereignty and user data usage were raised after some Meta users alleged they were forced to follow the accounts of the U.S. President and Vice President after attempting to unfollow.

A Meta spokesperson denied the claims, saying the accounts are managed by the White House, and switch with every new transition.

The alleged ‘automatic follow’ incident has been compared to a similar misstep made by Apple and the Irish rock band U2. In 2014, the album Songs of Innocence was automatically downloaded on millions of iPhones and iPods without user consent.

London, Ont.-based technology analyst Carmi Levy says the U2 incident illustrated the need for better legislation.

“Millions of people had bought iPods and the company decided that it had the power to force a change on those iPods, never mind that it was a free album, it was still an unrequested change and unfortunately at the time, the privacy legislation that was in place was not modern enough to recognize that,” Levy told 1130 News Radio.

Canada’s federal government is currently processing a bill designed to help address privacy issues. Bill C-27 aims to update the Privacy Act to resolve specific privacy concerns around social media platforms that didn’t exist when the bill was first written. If passed, it would increase privacy protections and add new protections for minors. But Levy says the bill could very well die if an election is called soon.

Levy adds that when users agree to the privacy policies on social media platforms, they are effectively signing a contract to allow the company to use their data however it wishes.

“The first thing we need to recognize is our rights on social media are all laid out in the terms of use in terms of service that we sign up for when we first install the app. We don’t read those. We should because that illustrates what we can and cannot do and illustrates and explains in rather excruciating detail what the company’s accountabilities are.” Levy said

“So buyer beware, and I think this episode with the [alleged] ‘forced follow’ of White House presidential accounts illustrates just how much power these technology companies have and how vigilant Canadians need to be to ensure that they’re not victimized by them.”