The Influence of Social Media Algorithms on Alt-Right Politics in Canada

​As someone born and raised in British Columbia (BC), I have followed closely as the provincial political party that ruled for most of my lifetime, the BC Liberal Party, changed its name to the BC United Party and withdrew themselves from BC's upcoming election on October 19th. I could write a lengthy article about the incompetent (and possibly malicious) decisions of BC United and their leader, Kevin Falcon, but a Press Progress article titled "Leaked Dossier Reveals 200 Pages of Conspiracies and Controversial Statements From John Rustad’s BC Conservative Candidates,” outlines a story with significantly more relevance to Canadian society. Press Progress' article shares information from a BC United opposition research document on the BC Conservative Party, a fringe right-wing political party that has not won a single seat in BC's parliament since 1975. This article reveals that a third (33/87) of BC Conservative candidates have made at least one social media post about their alt-right beliefs. When I refer to alt-right beliefs, I am referring to any social media post that falls under the document's categories of conspiracies & extremism, misogynistic or weird, racism or racial insensitivity, antisemitism and holocaust comparisons, anti-LGBTQ+, climate change and environment [denialism], medical quackery, and US politics. For a more comprehensive understanding of the alt-right, I highly recommend YouTube's @Innuendostudios, "The Alt-Right Playbook."
 
Canada's population generally likes to pretend that our liberal and multicultural values insulate us from alt-right politics popularized by the USA and their former president, Donald Trump. In reality, BC Conservative candidates' social media posts expose how common these alt-right beliefs have become among federal and provincial conservative political parties in Canada. With recent election polling data showing that a majority of people in BC support the BC Conservative Party, I believe it is necessary to evaluate how their alt-right views have become normalized in Canadian politics. In reviewing BC United's opposition research document, there is a clear link between alt-right politics and social media. It's not a coincidence that BC Conservative Candidates made these alt-right statements on social media. By understanding the influences of social media companies and their algorithms, it becomes apparent how they have normalized alt-right politics in Canada. This understanding should make us mindful of how algorithms manipulate the public’s perceptions and empower us to demand legislative action to regulate them.
 
While our polarized political climate and other factors contribute to the proliferation of alt-right social media posts, I believe social media companies and their algorithms are the main culprits. Social media companies are for-profit corporations with one goal*: increasing shareholder profits. With this goal in mind, social media companies must encourage their users to actively engage with content on their platforms for as long as possible (basically, get them addicted). That way, they can profit by endlessly showing their users advertisements. To ensure users are addicted to their platforms, social media companies have programmed their algorithms to prioritize content users will spend the most time reading, liking, and commenting on. Unfortunately, through decades of data analysis, these algorithms have learned that social media users engage with content the longest and most consistently when it emotionally triggers them.
 
For example, algorithms would deprioritize a post that says, "Canadian healthcare is bad," because most users are likely to quickly read it, not care about this benign comment, and move on. Conversely, algorithms would certainly prioritize a post that says, "Canadian healthcare is a scam designed to control the population." When users see this post, they will read it for a long time as they process the irrational complexity of the statement. Then, they will either like it to show support or comment to voice their disagreement (or support), creating a long period of engagement. As we know, algorithms facilitate this type of engagement to extend their advertising opportunities, which furthers their only goal of increasing shareholder profits. Between this algorithmic incentive and other emotional and financial incentives created by social media companies, users who post emotionally triggering content are highly rewarded. In this context, alt-right political commentary thrives because emotionally inflammatory opinions like "the government controls the weather" are inherently prioritized by social media algorithms.
 
*While most social media companies only have one goal of increasing shareholder profits, Elon Musk, with the social media company X (which I will refer to as Twitter moving forward), has broken this trend. Instead, Musk has followed in the footsteps of Jeff Bezos with the Washington Post and Rupert Murdoch with Fox News by turning Twitter into a political project to further his ideological views. At first, Musk claimed he bought Twitter for 'free speech.' That ideal immediately collapsed when he suspended journalists in the first couple of months that he owned Twitter because they reported information about him that he did not like; so much for free speech! Two years later, Musk blocked all users from posting links to an unlawfully obtained document that contained personal information about Donald Trump's VP, JD Vance. This decision is unbearably ironic, considering the central event that made Musk want to buy Twitter was when its former owners banned users from sharing links to an illegally obtained document that contained personal information about Hunter Biden. In his recent conspiratorial tweets and political campaign donations to Donald Trump, Musk has demonstrated his support for alt-right politics and plans to use his ownership of Twitter to further his ideological goals. Because of these unique ideological influences, Twitter has openly and intentionally manipulated its algorithm (it's partially open-source) to prioritize alt-right political content and, specifically, his own account's posts! Musk's intentional manipulation of Twitter's algorithm has resulted in alt-right political content becoming exponentially visible and normalized on his social media platform. Donald Trump recently rewarded Elon Musk for all his hard work in perpetuating alt-right content on Twitter by allowing him to jump around like a child on stage at one of his campaign rallies.
 
Ultimately, there are two main reasons why Canadians should view social media algorithms in their current state as problematic. First, these algorithms manipulate the public’s understanding of what beliefs are societally popular. Most users assume that social media algorithms show them popular and personalized content. Therefore, social media users who follow politics and see alt-right posts will believe these political beliefs are widespread because algorithms prioritize them. This illusion of popularity allows more and more people to feel comfortable embracing alt-right politics because everyone else on social media seems to agree with them—even BC Conservative candidates. It’s highly problematic that algorithmic manipulation of what the public perceives to be popular results in alt-right beliefs becoming normalized because Canadians falsely assume these opinions are commonplace.
 
Second, the relevance of algorithmically boosted alt-right beliefs in Canada is harmful to our society. I am not implying that conservative politics are harmful, as I believe there are many valid economic and cultural grievances that conservatives hold. However, alt-right politics deviate from conservatism because people who hold alt-right beliefs identify and vilify groups of people as the single cause of all of their cultural and economic grievances. Whether it's women, people of colour, immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community, Jewish people, the medical community, or climate change activists, the alt-right blames these people for keeping white men from running society properly, like in the good old days. For example, it's much easier to blame immigrants for Canada's housing crisis (a statement not supported by data) than to propose a solution considering our housing market's economic and cultural nuances. As a result, some Canadians embrace the alt-right view that immigrants' existence is a problem worthy of punishment, even though they have individually done nothing to deserve this hatred. These politics of hate and demonization should not belong in Canada's multicultural and liberal society. Still, they do in part because social media algorithms have lifted alt-right politics into the mainstream of Canada’s political discourse.
 
To solve the problem of social media algorithms misleading the public, the Canadian government should legislate that social media corporations must regulate their algorithms to only sort posts chronologically. Simply put, the most recently made posts will be at the top of a user's social media news feed. Forcing algorithms to use the objective standard of time to sort content prevents social media companies from using the subjective standard of popularity, which leaves room for them to manipulate their algorithms. Even though this solution is a first step and not a comprehensive solution to the problems with social media, it would address the biases of social media algorithms without resorting to content moderation of political speech. The existence of alt-right political speech is not what makes social media problematic. Social media is problematic because people assume algorithms sort content by popularity, which creates a misperception among social media users regarding what discourse is societally relevant. As the public square for communication, the Canadian government needs to regulate social media companies’ algorithms to reflect the societal discourse occurring in reality and not misrepresent unpopular topics, like alt-right beliefs, as popular. Until social media companies are held accountable for manipulating their algorithms, they will continue to promote and normalize alt-right social media content that will eventually harm many vulnerable Canadians.