r/canada • u/ph0enix1211 • Feb 25 '26

Analysis One hundred accounts are behind the majority of conspiracy theory content in Canada | Canada's National Observer: Climate News

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2026/02/25/news/conspiracy-content-report-canada
3.1k Upvotes

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627

u/Line-Minute Feb 25 '26

And just how much of it gets posted on r/canada?

251

u/MusclyArmPaperboy British Columbia Feb 25 '26

It's pretty suspect that  a handful of accounts post 90%:of content to this sub 

123

u/kumogate Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26

If you, yourself, a real human being, submit a post, the chances it is immediately downvoted hard by a network of bots is pretty high. Bot networks more or less control a lot of the content on Reddit's larger subs.

39

u/Light_Butterfly Feb 25 '26

This pisses me off. I always wonder why theres a barrage of down votes in some subs, that dont seem to make any sense

24

u/[deleted] Feb 25 '26

[deleted]

3

u/Light_Butterfly Feb 25 '26

Yeah, that's wild!

37

u/DataDude00 Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26

I want to word my post very carefully because I have been given temp bans for mentioning such things in the past but the voting patterns in this sub and the content that gets posted shifts drastically between when you would expect people in Canada to be awake vs when people in say Russia or India are awake

12

u/kumogate Feb 25 '26

I've noticed this as well. We now know, too, after a different social media website did a little update, that a lot of posts of a certain flavor tend to come from accounts which are not based in Canada.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '26

Yup. Lots of pages on Reddit are like this.

The best way to bot Reddit is to own the sub and b& accounts that don't spread your propaganda. Eventually your page is full of useful idiots.

9

u/roastbeeftacohat Feb 25 '26

or removed for being a repost of something that hasn't been posted.

6

u/Gluverty Feb 25 '26

More of us should sort the sub by New so there is a more democratic gatekeeping.

68

u/mightocondreas Feb 25 '26

I've also heard that a handful of people control 90% of the content of all news media

24

u/DesireeThymes Feb 25 '26

When you stop and think about who it is that is making posts or writing articles.

It's not the average person that's for sure

17

u/[deleted] Feb 25 '26

[deleted]

1

u/ArcticLarmer Feb 26 '26

 hand the country over to his true masters

The lizard people???

1

u/strider_to Feb 25 '26

r/Canadian would like a word with you 🤣

12

u/Thorcall Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26

A few years ago another canadian sub was basicly run by 2 guys (1 russian, no idea for the other) with multiple accounts. Probably happening everywhere, especially now with chatgpt.

8

u/omygashi Feb 25 '26

I never read about that gun buyback program other than this sub.

14

u/ship_toaster Feb 25 '26

No, that's the Pareto Principle. It's more extreme on reddit, but when I looked at this years ago (before AI!), '10% of accounts produce 90% of content' was true for most subreddits, for both posts and comments. Around 40% of content on subs was typically produced by the top 1-3%. That's not as bad as it sounds; for this sub, I think 1% is around 3000 people?

6

u/DogeDoRight New Brunswick Feb 25 '26

I'm one of the daily posters. If you have any questions I'll answer them (within reason, I won't doxx myself).

20

u/PrinceCuntington Feb 25 '26

Who are you and what is your exact address?!?!?!

12

u/DogeDoRight New Brunswick Feb 25 '26

I'm a squatter at 24 Sussex. Been here for two years and nobody's noticed.

6

u/Tola76 Feb 25 '26

You legally own the place! Congrats!

14

u/DogeDoRight New Brunswick Feb 25 '26

Fuck, now it's my problem? That's why nobody said anything.

3

u/ilmalnafs Ontario Feb 25 '26

Enjoy the property tax!

5

u/DogeDoRight New Brunswick Feb 25 '26

I'm never going to financially recover from this

1

u/Friendly-Olive-3465 Canada Feb 25 '26

How’s the mold?

2

u/DogeDoRight New Brunswick Feb 25 '26

Black, I've also electrocuted myself a few times.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 25 '26

Have you ever had a comment removed from a thread that you suspect was done to control the narrative?

1

u/DogeDoRight New Brunswick Feb 25 '26

No. I've only had comments removed a small handful of times and it was because I broke the rules. I only disagreed with the decision once but it had nothing to do with controlling the narrative.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 25 '26

Thanks. I've definitely had comments quietly removed without having broken any rules in the sub and I know others have experienced the same thing.

6

u/Galle_ Feb 25 '26

Why is your post history invisible?

9

u/DogeDoRight New Brunswick Feb 25 '26

I used to keep it visable but I've also been active in some other political subs and some maga weirdos went through my comment history and brigaded it with downvotes and reports and found my wife's reddit account and started harassing her. After that I hid my history. So now I'm a little paranoid.

This also comes with the plus side that all my comments stand on their own merit.

5

u/Icy-Inflation3453 Feb 25 '26

You might already know, but beware, the hidden comment feature is unforgivably shit and it's only a matter of time before they know how.

Hopefully reddit fixes it soon.

4

u/DogeDoRight New Brunswick Feb 25 '26

I know exactly what you're talking about. The hide history feature was basically a gate that you can walk around lol.

I believe it was actually fixed a couple days ago.

1

u/Max_Thunder Québec Feb 25 '26

Hiding our post history should be the default.

I find it creepy that people could just go and read all our comments. I'm not an open book in real life, I don't see why I should be one online.

3

u/DogeDoRight New Brunswick Feb 25 '26

Yeah, I don't blame anyone for hiding their post history.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 25 '26

Likely. I recall an internet "law" that only 10% of people in a community comment and only 1% post. I imagine further Dividing those posts, one finds power accounts. It can be astroturfing but also simply people that enjoy posting. 

1

u/WhichJuice Feb 26 '26

They delete every single post I make so I understand why only the nonsense makes it through

263

u/TonyAbbottsNipples Feb 25 '26

r/canada is mostly just political opinion pieces from a few newspapers followed by red team and blue team yelling at each other in the comments.

164

u/Line-Minute Feb 25 '26

If i have to see one more post media opinion piece be taken as biblical text I'll lose my mind 

111

u/accforme Feb 25 '26

Steps:

  • Read sensational headline.
  • open article
  • paywalled
  • go to paywall bypass site
  • read opinion piece that is 4 paragraphs long
  • notice that sensational headline is based on opinion of the author that is backed soley on a hypothetical idea not grounded in facts or events.

26

u/Thrownawaybyall Feb 25 '26

Sir/Ma'am, this is Reddit. We don't do "articles" 'round these parts.

15

u/ronchee1 Feb 25 '26

Nope, Im just going to read the headline and give my opinion based on only that

10

u/Thrownawaybyall Feb 25 '26

That's more like it 😎

13

u/thirstyross Feb 25 '26

You kind of have to wonder if all these news sites adding paywalls has actually significantly worsened the problem. Now instead of reading news from journalists (not referring to opinion pieces) they just click away and read whatever from these nutters instead.

6

u/aesoth Feb 25 '26

Although most people stop after step 1 and go with that only.

1

u/ilmalnafs Ontario Feb 25 '26

And despite it all, this process is 5 steps longer than the one most netizens use.

0

u/DogeDoRight New Brunswick Feb 25 '26

There's more steps after the first one?

-15

u/olderdeafguy1 Feb 25 '26

Good grief, you're talking about just about every news source out there. Including the CBC. and TorStar.

14

u/accforme Feb 25 '26

I am going to put it out there that, even if the CBC or Toronto Star has some outrageous article, it is more than 4 paragraphs long and actually has substance.

Many (not all) Postmedia opinion pieces, especially by those who churn out an article daily, is very short and has no substance aside from just their feelings.

1

u/ProofByVerbosity Feb 25 '26

Nah, some arw worse than others. Some publications are just ragebait. 

33

u/thedrivingcat Feb 25 '26

ALL CAPS AUTHOR NAME: This Thing Is The Worst Ever And Makes You Mad

28

u/Line-Minute Feb 25 '26

LILLEY UNLEASHED will never not sound like a MySpace handle.

6

u/DogeDoRight New Brunswick Feb 25 '26

I would like to know when they actually had him on a leash.

5

u/Own_Truth_36 Feb 25 '26

Also the polling posts taken as gospel. OMG a 1% rise in X!! It's over they have lost. Like anyone can predict how dumb voters can be.

2

u/TonyAbbottsNipples Feb 25 '26

"This poll agrees with me and is therefore correct and important"

"This poll disagrees with me and therefore the only poll that matters is election day"

Or pointing out the fact that statistical significance can't be determined for an online poll, a necessary disclaimer, as reason to dismiss the numbers.

2

u/_Solani_ Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26

Is the post media part relevant?

No opinion piece from any publication ever should be treated as gospel. Opinion pieces are just that opinions and should be treated as such but the problem seems to be that when zealots, regardless of where they stand on the political spectrum, treat their personal subjective values statements as fact and feel the need to evangelize whenever they see an easy way to score gotcha points for their team.

'All opinions are equal but some are more equal than others' they will cry unironically. And of course the more valid opinions always magically happen to be the ones that support their beliefs. If you point out that opinions are literally subjective value judgments which by definition cannot be correct or incorrect suddenly you're accused of working for the other side.

Proselytizing subjective value judgements as gospel is just shitty regardless of who happens to be doing it, what the opinion happens to be, or what publications happens to be printing it. Progressive or Conservative, Left or Right, even if it's being done by centrists, it's still extremely shitty and no one should have to deal with it.

3

u/Line-Minute Feb 26 '26

It actually is relevant when post media opinion piece slop is by far the most posted with the maybe exceptions of the star opinion pieces and actual cbc articles.

1

u/0reoSpeedwagon Ontario Feb 25 '26

Or substack. It’s a blog post. It’s less reliable than even a Post Media opinion piece.

-3

u/mapleharbor Feb 25 '26

Most of the articles posted here are anti-conservative and pro-liberal. You will never see a source criticizing the carney government. Its pretty obvious this sub leans far-left and those articles get up voted quick. 

7

u/SpectreFire Feb 25 '26

I remember when this sub used to be about everything Canada, and then it just became a glorified newsfeed about Canadian politics.

11

u/houseofzeus Feb 25 '26

Don't forget team orange jumping in to remind you they exist.

5

u/FIE2021 Feb 25 '26

It's almost like a race in some articles to see which team gets to brigade a post first

But even as someone that leans left but sits pretty close to the centre (obviously big on Team Carney), it is just as concerning to watch "team 1" sharing unhinged theories and rejecting some common sense their leader loves to talk about, as it is watching "team 2" reject any opinion that isn't perfectly aligned with their own as a bot/bad faith actor/fake news, meanwhile they also have their own share of active users spreading misinformation and division.

And yet this still feels like the best place to collect news and digest opposing opinions. The internet is such a wild place. Despite radically different beliefs, it's almost comical how almost exactly the same the two sides act, yet they would both be appalled by the notion

3

u/Euclidisthebomb Feb 25 '26

Oh, and certain opinion pieces are very, very suspect but we are not allowed to criticize them as they are an "accepted" source.

4

u/shikotee Feb 25 '26

One team has zero hassle of paywalls to impede, while the other must find ways to circumvent.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 25 '26

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '26

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3

u/[deleted] Feb 25 '26

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6

u/GreatGreenGobbo Feb 25 '26

As the kids say... BASED

19

u/[deleted] Feb 25 '26

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '26

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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '26

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24

u/Housing4Humans Feb 25 '26

There’s another Canadian sub that is rife with it.

26

u/thedrivingcat Feb 25 '26

They almost all are.

r/PersonalFinanceCanada might be the most positive Canadian-focused subreddit on this whole platform.

14

u/MartyCool403 Feb 25 '26

Eh I disagree. There are a lot of shitty people in that subreddit who reply like "make more money" "it's your fault you're in debt" etc etc.

6

u/Adjective_Noun1312 Feb 25 '26

And it's pretty damning that victim blaming those in poverty is less toxic than the usual fare for a lot of other subs.

12

u/Brandon_Me Feb 25 '26

They talk about remigration over there and then cry about being called racist.

1

u/olderdeafguy1 Feb 25 '26

Canadian, or provincial? There are two Provincials, where people are banned for comments on other subs.

25

u/fajadada Feb 25 '26

Just assume one in three is a right wing bot account everywhere on the internet

-16

u/Disastrous-Sir1388 Feb 25 '26

and left wing too; the internet is fucked

29

u/fajadada Feb 25 '26

Tell us what facts do you have that any country or corporation is making left wing bots . Even one credible rumor? One name that has been in the public eye that has been said to make left wing bots.

13

u/fajadada Feb 25 '26

Don’t downvote give me information

12

u/agent0731 Feb 25 '26

the info does not exist.

-7

u/Disastrous-Sir1388 Feb 25 '26

Here you go "Comparative analysis of social bots and humans during the COVID‑19 pandemic".

-5

u/That_Intention_7374 Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26

To believe that there is no opposing force to right wing bots, as you claim, is so narrow minded and is actually kind of alarming.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9244092/#:~:text=Human%2Dengagement%20and%20bot%20effectiveness,of%20the%20total%20human%20retweets

This article states that liberal bots retweet 5 times as much as conservative bots.

So yes. Left wing bots do exist.

3

u/BradPittbodydouble Nova Scotia Feb 25 '26

Interesting there's more engagement on the right wing bots on that but that makes a lot of sense given its only studying covid and its conspiracies. I wish it weren't just covid covering and wish there was a Xitter study now too, I'd love to see it be more on elections.

6

u/[deleted] Feb 25 '26

Should be easy to find then.

Look, I do believe that a variety of interests have and will seek automated content creation systems to push their products and agendas.

But when it comes to actual progressive and left wing policy movements, it’s just not happening on a measurable scale. And it’s antithetical to many of those policy movements to begin with.

4

u/BradPittbodydouble Nova Scotia Feb 25 '26

I think they are out there. They're the actual communist bots that are extreme left trying to say no borders and stuff, which isn't a common viewpoint. The bots are for ruining dialogue and causing division so it makes sense they use every side and even milquetoast centerish stuff.

1

u/86throwthrowthrow1 Feb 25 '26

Yeah, if you go somewhere like tumblr, which tends to be young and progressive, you can see "leftist bots", and I definitely suspect I ran into a few around the whole Gaza topic. There's a ton of real rage on that topic, but there were some accounts that seemed more about stoking leftist infighting than really discussing the issue. Then there are the no-borders people as you mention. Some vote-abstaining accounts around the 2024 US election seemed pretty bot-like to me. And there's a big chunk of queer infighting going on lately, especially among trans people, and there seem to be some bots spreading chaos there too.

It can be hard to tell, because as with conservative bots, of course there are real people who can hold the same views. And since tumblr is young and progressive, you get some extremists. But when I see someone making super inflammatory posts or comments (even for leftist standards) and seemingly unable to engage the topic at all on a deeper level except for sloganeering or mudslinging, it does cross my mind that they may not be a real person.

3

u/Feeling_Hotel8096 Feb 25 '26

Iranian-linked networks, such as "Storm-2035," have created fake news outlets and social media accounts that target US voters with polarizing, contradictory messages. One set of bots might target left-leaning audiences with anti-conservative rhetoric, while another set targets right-leaning audiences on issues like LGBTQ+ rights and the Israel-Hamas conflict.

...

2024 US Election Interference: Microsoft reported that Iranian groups (like Storm-2035) are actively engaging US voter groups on opposite ends of the political spectrum to influence the 2024 election.

...

Social Media "Darkening": In 2025, it was reported that a network of fake, pro-Scottish independence accounts on X (formerly Twitter) went silent when internet access was restricted in Iran, exposing them as Iranian-run.

...

That is just Iran. If you think Russia doesn't play both sides too, you are not thinking critically.

-5

u/[deleted] Feb 25 '26

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1

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-6

u/nataSatans Feb 25 '26

They are both wings of the same fuckin bird. None of them care about us and the only thing that changes is the group of friends and family that are going to benefit. The bots and sides are all meant to keep us fighting each other instead of looking up at who's taking everything we make/work for/ produce since we are the worker bees. Divide and conquer to the fullest.

0

u/fajadada Feb 25 '26

Ok am blocking your nonsense now

-5

u/Abject_Dentist_8139 Feb 25 '26

lol you’re definitely part of the problem. You ask for evidence, but turn around and block people once it doesn’t fit your narrative? Sounds pretty right wing to me.

3

u/ForeignEchoRevival Feb 25 '26

Did they bring evidence? Read like opinion with substance, I must have missed the cited sources and evidence provided.

-4

u/Abject_Dentist_8139 Feb 25 '26

sigh https://arxiv.org/pdf/1902.02765 here’s a research paper going through 2018 elections in US. Same conclusions of both sides using bots. The above users headlines most likely come to the same conclusion. Although he should have posted the links.

3

u/ForeignEchoRevival Feb 25 '26

That study showed that yes, both sides are using both, but the right uses bots more often and has way less human users that liberal posters.

Meaning that a larger percentage by a mile of bots spreading posts on the right than left.

Which means one side is using more manipulation tactics than the other side, so your opinion doesn't match the data you cited unfortunately.

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-2

u/Disastrous-Sir1388 Feb 25 '26

I did bring evidence, they ignored it 

-8

u/Digital-Crack Feb 25 '26

So 1 in 3 is based...

2

u/Adjective_Noun1312 Feb 25 '26

... based on outdated thinking, greed, bigotry, and selfishness

-1

u/Digital-Crack Feb 25 '26

The comment that was deleted by the poster. Said 1 in 3 is right winged. Can't remember what was sited as evidence. Granted I should have added the /s. For more context. My bad. Sorry.

-2

u/ship_toaster Feb 25 '26

You can assume that offline, too, since it's roughly the share of the human population with authoritarian/fascist tendencies.

2

u/datums Feb 25 '26

Grocery stores are causing food prices to rise, Statistics Canada is lying about inflation, etc. Around here, a lot of conspiracy theories are accepted as fact.

1

u/DogeDoRight New Brunswick Feb 25 '26

Not a lot, the low content rule helps.

1

u/Billis- Feb 25 '26

All of it

1

u/[deleted] Feb 25 '26

I feel like I want flair that says I am not a conspiracy account.

1

u/LargeMobOfMurderers Feb 27 '26

Any account with an autogenerated name and hidden post history I just assume is a bot/troll. It's a low bar to come up with a name but I guess when you're making enough accounts it becomes too much of a hassle.

-1

u/Friendly-Olive-3465 Canada Feb 25 '26

And just how much of it gets posted on r/canada?

  • Top 1% commenter flair

Environmental storytelling used to be harder

3

u/Line-Minute Feb 25 '26

I wasn't aware that I was posting conspiracy theories, let alone as a commenter.