In January, a public inquiry into foreign election interference raised concerns about the threat of hostile nations, such as China and Russia, meddling in Canada’s democracy.
While these worries are well founded, Canadians should be equally concerned about the threat posed by our southern neighbour and erstwhile closest ally, the United States, whose tech companies control nearly all our digital public infrastructure, and whose leaders are increasingly aligned with a second Donald Trump administration which poses a direct threat to Canadian sovereignty.
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Throughout most of their history, the major social media platforms have generally reflected this democratic spirit, including strong attitudes toward freedom of expression and a general reticence against appearing politically partisan.
Increasing authoritarianism in the U.S.
But that era is now at an end and Canadians need to be clear-eyed about the danger that American social media platforms will abuse their enormous power and influence to undermine Canadian democracy.
I wish AWS and Azure were looked at the same way, especially considering how much sensitive data we have backed onto them.
If you’re still on X you’re actively part of an already huge and escalating problem. Ditch it NOW.
Social media platforms? Try US digital services and systems. If the U.S decided to invade Canada today, couldn’t they just tell Microsoft, Apple, Google and other companies to shut down the entire country?
The volume of municipalities using google services alone, losing that would be devastating.
Is it time for an expanded digital services tax? Why not tax foreign social media like we tax sugar, alcohol, nicotine, and fast food? The imposition of minimum pricing rules per account or per post would be a huge disincentive. Maybe regulate them like traditional media. Ban foreign ownership?
Edit: spelling
Also American owned traditional media is a huge problem too
No shit
I guess we all better make sure to sign that petition to ban X! That will fix everything!
Even if it did nothing more than piss off fElon, it would be worth it (I say as an American).
Wasting the Governments time to legislate pissing off a Billionaire Man Baby is not a productive use of time. Especially when the problem is American tech companies being balls deep in every level of the Canadian Government.