Leong: Foreign interference isn’t limited to political world

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Much has been written in recent history about the ramifications of foreign interference on Canadian politics.

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The focus has been deservedly placed on the intrigue playing out in Parliament and MPs’ constituency offices, with allegations of foreign agents exerting their influence.

While high-level investigations into those matters carry on, Canadians must not lose sight of a far more insidious form of interference taking place in every home — thanks to every digital device capable of using the internet.

When the World Wide Web arrived at our fingertips some 30 years ago, it was believed giving people access to such a large repository of information and to near-instant electronic communications would usher in a new era of global enlightenment and unity.

In the young, optimistic internet of yesteryear, there were users’ guides that explained the basic concepts of the web, including a handbook for netiquette. (Quaint!)

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At school, one of my classes embraced the internet’s potential for global connections. We were signed up for email discussion lists specially created to have conversations with our counterparts around the globe on whatever topic was picked by teachers for us to thoughtfully dissect and debate.

And while healthy discussion is still possible online today, it’s also just as likely to propagate half-truths and outright lies.

Scientists fight back against storm of misinformation

Not long ago, the southern United States was raked by two severe hurricanes, Helene and Milton, which caused huge loss of life and massive damage across a wide swath of the country.

Almost immediately, rumours began to circulate about why those storms had become so large and dangerous, including false claims about weather modification.

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One of the sillier suggestions was that cloud seeding had made the hurricanes worse — but those of us who live in southern Alberta can attest to the fact cloud seeding used to mitigate the impact of relatively smaller hailstorms can be a bit of a hit-and-miss endeavour.

A lot of the rumours targeted the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other government agencies involved in atmospheric research, causing scientists at the weather agency and elsewhere to rebut against all the weirdness.

Of course, it’s not helped when politicians themselves decide they want to dabble in this dangerous game.

Saskatchewan Premier Moe and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith were caught up this year in the controversy surrounding chemtrails, failing to push back against their own supporters and constituents at town hall meetings who suggested we are being poisoned by what is actually water vapour emitted from planes.

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In both cases, they initially humoured the speakers who brought it up, inadvertently propagating falsehoods that both leaders would later say they didn’t actually believe.

As for how the seeds for such nonsense were sown, they are everywhere.

Malicious intent behind continued peddling of lies

One of my relatives recently told me about an online video of some kind of talk show in Cantonese, produced by God knows who, openly questioning whether the United States had sent astronauts to the moon and suggesting all space race missions were fabricated.

Despite physical proof to the contrary, this moon landing conspiracy theory is as old as the space program itself and the fact it lives on thanks to the internet is a testament to the malicious intent of those who keep peddling it and the innocence of those ill-equipped to identify to filter out the noise.

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That we are able to have access to seemingly endless information about everything with just a few taps on our smartphones is a generally positive development.

But there are those out there who would be quite happy for us to misunderstand and misuse that information, or for us to be unable to sift through all the fiction to find the facts.

Just as we are concerned about foreign governments attempting to interfere with our political class, let’s not ignore the potential for widespread interference of unknown origin directed at individual voters, leaving social and political discord in its wake.

After all it is we, the people, who ultimately decide who gets elected to office — and the people must take care not to be used and mislead.

rleong@postmedia.com

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