British Columbia Election Information Ecosystem Project: Baseline Report

Executive Summary

The British Columbia Election Information Ecosystem Project, established by the Media Ecosystem Observatory, will monitor the information ecosystem during the 2024 British Columbia general election. This baseline report provides a snapshot of the attitudes and online behaviours of British Columbians immediately prior to the election, drawing on a survey fielded in the province in September 2024 and a unique social media data collection and analysis methodology focused on influential individuals and organizations based in British Columbia.

The report observes four main findings. First, a partisan divide across social media platforms: the Conservative Party of BC is most active on X (Twitter) while the BC NDP is far more active and garners more engagement on Instagram, the first time such an extreme bifurcation of politician discourse has been observed. Second, public sentiments are positive: British Columbians are going into the election confident that Elections BC will conduct it fairly, are comfortable with vote counting machines, and have higher trust in the security of voting machines than other Canadians. Third, information threat perception is consistent with the national level, with British Columbians no more tuned to misinformation or foreign interference than other Canadians. Fourth, less local news is available following the bankruptcy of Black Press Media and the Meta news ban.

During the election period, the team will identify information incidents and, if one occurs, engage an Incident Response process to notify, analyze, update, and educate the BC population.

Key Takeaways

• The BC Conservative Party and BC NDP show an extreme platform bifurcation: Conservatives dominate engagement on X/Twitter while the NDP dominate on Instagram, the starkest partisan platform split ever observed by MEO.
• 89.2% of British Columbians are confident that Elections BC will conduct the election fairly, and 83.1% believe electronic vote-counting machines are as secure as or more secure than hand counting.
• Influencers garnered 63.9% of all engagement among BC entities despite news outlets publishing 49.9% of all posts.
• Black Press Media bankruptcy caused a steep decline in local BC news outlet posts in late March 2024, compounding the impact of the Meta news ban.
• 47.7% of BC respondents reported being very or extremely concerned about online misinformation, and 55.8% about AI-generated content misleading the public.