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How U.S. political advertising, social media strategy could shape Canada's next federal election campaigns – CBC.ca

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This column is an opinion by Éric Blais, president of Headspace Marketing in Toronto. He has helped build brands for more than 35 years and is a commentator on political marketing for media such as CBC’s Power & Politics. For more information about CBC’s Opinion section, please see the FAQ.

The day after a recent game of chicken in the House of Commons that could have brought down the government and sent Canadians to the polls, Elections Canada declared it was ready to run a snap election during a pandemic. However, are Canada’s voters and politicians ready?

Besides being a risky political move, since many Canadians likely wouldn’t be happy about political manoeuvring resulting in an election in the midst of a public-health crisis, there are big questions around how a physically distanced election would affect campaign strategy.

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Political parties are in permanent campaign mode these days, and they have already taken steps to adapt to the health requirements of different regions through things such as increased use of phone calls and online meetings. But that’s no substitute for socially-close tactics that are mainstays of political campaigns: rallies, door-to-door canvassing, shaking hands and kissing babies.

If Canada ends up with a federal election battle during the pandemic, the need to reach and engage voters, communicate party platforms and respond to attacks will likely lead to a significant increase in advertising spending. It could also mean the adoption of high-impact campaign strategies that push the limits of what’s acceptable to media providers and the voting public.

For a sign of what Canadians could be in for if there’s an election call in the coming months, look south of the border.

A New York Times analysis found that the majority of both Donald Trump’s and Joe Biden’s campaign ads were either negative or what’s called a ‘contrast ad,’ a mix of criticism of the opponent and self-promotion. (Jim Watson, Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

An analysis by the New York Times revealed that more than $1.5 billion US was spent on advertising for the presidential race alone from May 3 to Oct. 15; by contrast, $496 million was spent on ads around the presidential race by that point in the 2016 race. This astronomical increase in ad spending resulted in carpet-bombing of battleground states with, for example, close to 40 different ads for Joe Biden running in a single week in Pennsylvania alone.

Add to this the relentless micro-targeted ads on social media. Voters have never before been exposed to this much advertising from political parties during a campaign.

And it’s mostly nasty.

The same analysis found that roughly 80 per cent of the Donald Trump campaign’s ads have been either negative or what’s called a “contrast ad,” a mix of criticism of the opponent and self-promotion. Of those, 62 per cent were all-out attacks. About 60 per cent of Biden’s campaign ads were negative or contrast, with 7 per cent outright negative.

Political strategists in Canada have generally refrained from adopting the more extreme U.S.-style political ads, but they have sought inspiration and guidance from top Democratic and Republican strategists. Leading up to the 2018 election, for example, the Liberals got advice from Barack Obama’s chief campaign strategist David Axelrod, who told them they needed to persuade voters they still represented change. Karl Rove, the architect of George W. Bush’s two presidential victories, spoke at last year’s Manning Networking Conference, where he advised Canada’s most influential conservative thinkers, strategists and politicians to go beyond simplistic, bumper-sticker sloganeering.

The House8:29Interview – David Axelrod

What can the Liberal party learn from Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns? Re-election campaigns hang on a party’s ability to convince voters they have brought change and will continue to do so, David Axelrod tells CBC Radio’s The House. 8:29

All this suggests that election campaigning in Canada is increasingly being modelled after strategies in other countries. Here’s a sampling of what we might expect should Canadian political strategists adopt advertising and social media tactics used in the U.S. to grab attention during the pandemic.

‘Intentional wrongness persuasion’

That’s what Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert and author of the book Win Bigly, calls Donald Trump’s persuasion method. First, make a claim that is directionally accurate but has a big exaggeration or factual error. Second, wait for people to notice the exaggeration or error and spend endless hours talking about how wrong it is.

As Adams puts it, “when you dedicate focus and energy to an idea, you remember it. And the things that have the most mental impact on you will irrationally seem as though they are high in priority, even if they are not.”

Or as Jared Kushner told Bob Woodward for his book Rage, “controversy elevates the message.”

Reductio ad absurdum

It’s Latin for “reduction to absurdity,” an argument whereby one seeks to prove one’s position simply by pointing out the absurdity or foolishness of an opponent’s position.

One of the most striking Biden ads doesn’t offer any constructive information about his platform, it’s a 10-second clip posted on Twitter. It shows Trump speaking at a rally: “If I lose to him [Joe Biden], I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I will never speak to you again. You’ll never see me again.” It ends with, “I’m Joe Biden and I approve this message.” It’s been viewed more than 18 million times.

Untruths left unchecked

Many voters get their news from their social media feed, where they’ll find a hodgepodge of lies, distortions and “alternate facts,” to borrow from former Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway. Fact checkers and those seeking the truth can’t keep up.

Participants in focus groups often say that the ads in particular must be true, because they would not be allowed if they weren’t. That’s generally the case, but there’s one exception: political ads. Advertising Standards Canada vets most advertising, including government advertising, but not political ads during a campaign.

We didn’t say it, they did

Third-party advertisers often say things candidates wouldn’t dare say, and advertising from political action committees in the U.S. has huge influence. Third-party ads have been taken to a new, highly sophisticated level by organizations like the Lincoln Project, a group of Republican operatives who disavowed their own party in order to work against President Donald Trump.

In Canada, we’ve already had a taste of this. True North Strong & Free urged people to vote for the People’s Party of Canada with billboards that read “Say No to Mass Immigration,” while billboards by Alberta Fights Back called for the jailing of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The posters were eventually removed, but the decision to accept or refuse these ads lies with the media providers that must navigate delicate issues around free speech and censorship.

Anti-Trudeau billboards that called for the jailing of the prime minister were displayed across Alberta in January this year. (Submitted)

Unauthorized use

Using content in ads without permission or out of context can spell trouble for commercial advertisers, but those crafting political ads in the U.S. appear less concerned about this. The Trump campaign recently ran an ad featuring Dr. Fauci and took his words out of context, for example.

This has already started happening here. A Facebook post by a Conservative riding association in British Columbia in 2019 took an authentic quote from Canadian comedian Rick Mercer about the importance of voting, but changed the final part of the quote from “Vote” to “Vote Conservative.” And the Liberals had to remove a campaign video from Facebook that featured Governor General Julie Payette.

Star power

Film star Samuel L. Jackson appeared in an ad for the Biden campaign slamming voter suppression. Sam Elliot and Brad Pitt lent their voices to ads portraying Biden as a uniter, while Martin Sheen voiced a Lincoln Project election day ad. And Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen lent their songs to ads urging Americans to vote and celebrating Biden’s hometown roots.

Canadian celebrities tend to avoid politics, although Quebec’s artistic community can be vocal in its support. Should political operatives in Canada seek star power to drive home their message, they should tread carefully as politics and celebrity culture usually don’t mix well in this country.

Justin Trudeau predicted that the 2019 federal election would be the country’s nastiest. It wasn’t, at least from an advertising standpoint. As we watch how Americans have taken the political discourse to new lows, we should hope for Canadians’ stereotypical niceness and politeness to kick in so we go high after they’ve gone low.


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Five of the best books about social media – The Guardian

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From Covid conspiracy theories to recent speculations about Catherine, Princess of Wales, social media is at the heart of how we share information, and misinformation, with one another in the 21st century. For those who want to have a better understanding of social media and how it affects us, here are a selection of titles that explore how we consume, share, and manipulate information on social media platforms.


So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson

Journalist and author Jon Ronson argues we live in “a great renaissance of public shaming”, and this book tracks down some of the many victims of online shaming to understand what happened to them as a result. In the process, we learn about Ronson’s own values, question our own, and figure out how we’ve reached a time where an online feed can become a social courtroom.


Doppelganger by Naomi Klein

After getting repeatedly mistaken for feminist-turned-conspiracy-theorist Naomi Wolf online, and then in real life, Naomi Klein penned Doppelganger as an earnest and introspective look at herself. The book explores how conspiracy theories and lies spread quickly through the internet, and how the social and political climate of the physical world manipulates the way we experience online platforms. While not exclusively about social media, the story behind Doppelganger is a perfect case of the ways our digital lives and identities intersect with what we experience in reality – and how dangerous the repercussions of spreading online lies can be.

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Irresistible by Adam Alter

Have you ever wondered why you can’t stop scrolling on your TikTok “for you” page, or obsessing over how many likes you got on a recent Facebook post? You’re not alone, and Adam Alter’s book explores why we get sucked into the digital world. He answers what makes an online addiction, whether it be to emails, Instagram, or Netflix, different to other forms of addiction – and warns us of the dangers this could cause long-term. As well as introspection, he gives practical solutions to how digital addiction can be controlled for good.


Extremely Online by Taylor Lorenz

Journalist Taylor Lorenz calls this book “a social history of social media”; she uses real-life case studies of mothers, teenagers, politicians and influencers to assess how social media touches all demographics. Extremely Online explores topics from the digital economy and influencer culture, to what makes moments go viral on Twitter and how this is all influencing the way we socialise and understand the world. At its core, this book explores the idea of what it means to connect – and how social media as an innovation has warped communication.


TikTok Boom by Chris Stokel-Walker

TikTok is arguably one of the most significant advancements in social media in the past two decades. This book by journalist and writer Chris Stokel-Walker explores how the app is changing the way users interact with content. It moves away from the social-commentary style of the other books mentioned here, instead using business and technology analysis as a means to describe wider socio-political repercussions of the app. Stokel-Walker bridges the gap between the digital and the physical, showing the feedback loop that exists between what happens online on platforms such as TikTok and the real world.

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Ontario school boards take social media giants to court for disrupting student learning – CBC.ca

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Four major Ontario school boards are taking some of the largest social media companies to court over their products, alleging the way they’re designed have negatively rewired the way children think, behave and learn and have thus disrupted the way schools operate.

The public district school boards of Toronto, Peel and Ottawa, along with Toronto’s Catholic counterpart, are looking for about $4.5 billion in damages from Meta Platforms Inc., Snap Inc. and ByteDance Ltd., which operate the platforms Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok respectively, according to statements of claim filed Wednesday.

“The influence of social media on today’s youth at school cannot be denied. It leads to pervasive problems such as distraction, social withdrawal, cyberbullying, a rapid escalation of aggression, and mental health challenges,” said Colleen Russell-Rawlins, director of education at the Toronto District School Board, in a release Thursday.

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“Therefore, it is imperative that we take steps to ensure the well-being of our youth. We are calling for measures to be implemented to mitigate these harms and prioritize the mental health and academic success of our future generation.” 

The school boards, operating under a new coalition called Schools for Social Media Change, allege students are experiencing an “attention, learning, and mental health crisis” because of “prolific and compulsive use of social media products.”

Trying to respond to this has caused “massive strains” on the group’s funds, including in additional mental health programming and staff, IT costs and administrative resources, the release states. The boards call on the social media giants to “remediate” the costs to the larger education system and redesign their products to keep students safe.

Neinstein LLP, a Toronto-based firm, is representing the school boards in their lawsuit. The boards will not be responsible for any costs related to the lawsuit unless a successful outcome is reached, the release states.

“A strong education system is the foundation of our society and our community. Social media products and the changes in behaviour, judgment and attention that they cause pose a threat to that system and to the student population our schools serve,” said Duncan Embury, a partner and head of litigation at Neinstein.

CBC Toronto has reached out to the companies named for comment.

The latest lawsuit comes after a large civil suit against Meta Platforms Inc. was initiated in the U.S. last fall. Over 30 states accused Meta Platforms Inc. of harming young people’s mental health and contributing to the youth mental health crisis by knowingly designing features on Instagram and Facebook that cause children to be addicted to its platforms.

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Four Ontario school boards sue social-media giants for products that harm students' behaviour and education – The Globe and Mail

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Colleen Russell Rawlins, Director of Education with the Toronto District School Board, talks to students at Selwyn Elementary School on Mar 27.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail

Four of Canada’s largest school boards are suing the companies behind social-media platforms Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat and TikTok, accusing them of negligently designing products that disrupt learning and rewire student behaviour while leaving educators to manage the fallout.

In four separate statements of claim filed on Wednesday in Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice, the Toronto District School Board, the Toronto Catholic District School Board, the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board and the Peel District School Board accused social-media companies of employing “exploitative business practices” and choosing to “maximize profits” at the expense of the mental health and well-being of students.

The addictive nature of social media means that educators spend more classroom time trying to have students focus on their lessons, the boards say in the statements of claim. They say the compulsive use of social-media platforms has also strained limited school board resources: Schools require additional mental health programs and personnel; staff spend more time addressing aggressive behaviour and incidents of cyberbullying; and information-technology services and cybersecurity costs have increased.

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“The Defendants have acted in a high-handed, reckless, malicious, and reprehensible manner without due regard for the well-being of the student population and the education system,” according to the statements of claim.

Similar lawsuits against social-media companies have been filed in the United States in recent months by individual states and school districts. This would mark the first time it’s being done by school boards in Canada.

The four boards filed their lawsuits against Meta Platforms Inc., which is responsible for Facebook and Instagram, Snap Inc., the parent company of SnapChat, and ByteDance Ltd., owner of TikTok.

The school boards are advancing combined claims of around $4.5-billion. They are also asking that the social-media giants redesign their products to keep students safe.

None of the allegations have been proven in court.

In an e-mailed statement, Tonya Johnson, a spokeswoman for Snap, said the platform was “intentionally designed to be different from traditional social-media” so that users could communicate with friends. “While we will always have more work to do, we feel good about the role Snapchat plays in helping close friends feel connected, happy and prepared as they face the many challenges of adolescence,” she stated.

Meta and ByteDance did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Social-media use by children and young people has been the topic of widespread discussion among parents, policymakers and educators. Earlier this week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill that bans social-media accounts for children under 14 and requires parental permission for 14- and 15-year-olds.

In Canada and elsewhere, there are growing concerns over the role social-media platforms play in cyberbullying, disrupted sleep patterns, brain development, and the inability of young people to focus.

A survey from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in 2021 found that 91 per cent of students in Grades 7 to 12 use social media daily, and about a third spend five hours or more daily on it. Researchers surveyed more than 2,000 Ontario students. Almost one-third reported being cyber-bullied at least once in the past year.

In their lawsuits, the four school boards said the companies “knew, or ought to have known, that the deliberate design of addictive and defective social-media products would interfere with students’ access to an education, negatively impact the learning environment, and create a public nuisance within the education system.”

Colleen Russell-Rawlins, education director of the Toronto District School Board, the country’s largest school board, said in an interview on Wednesday that social media has affected the education system in “very significant ways.”

“Students are not present,” she said, describing the addictive nature of social-media platforms. Educators are hearing about more incidents of cyberbullying. They are witnessing the rapid escalation of aggression that starts online. And they are helping students who are coping with anxiety and other mental health challenges.

The lawsuits, she said, are not just about raising awareness, but about protecting children by calling for safeguards and ensuring that school boards have the resources to help address the negative effects of increased social-media use.

“I think there’s no other childhood addiction that’s impacting children’s futures through education that we as educators and leaders would be expected to remain silent about. We feel compelled to act on behalf of our young people,” Ms. Russell-Rawlins said.

Pino Buffone, the education director at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, echoed the sentiment, adding that the compulsive use of social media has further strained the finite resources of the school board. Educators and other school staff are being forced to manage behaviour that stems from social-media use.

“It has become clear that we need to hold social-media giants accountable,” Mr. Buffone said.

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