Like it or Not: The Changing Canadian Information Ecosystem

Executive Summary

The past three years have seen major disruption to the ways Canadians consume and engage with political information online, driven by three major shifts. First, Meta blocked Canadian news on Facebook and Instagram, an action that had an instant and dramatic impact on how many Canadians received their news through social media, with the greatest impact on small and local outlets. Second, Elon Musk purchased and repurposed X (formerly Twitter) by removing trust and safety content moderation teams, reinstating accounts that have promoted violence, deprioritizing links in the algorithm, and introducing a paid verification system that has led to the amplification of misinformation — changes that have contributed to a decline in trust, the spread of hate speech and conspiracy theories, and the departure of many journalists and experts from the platform. Third, TikTok, once a marginal platform in Canada, has become an important venue for Canadians to share information and discuss politics.

This ecosystem brief highlights how these three shifts have changed the way politicians, news outlets, and Canadians are engaging with politics online. It finds stronger engagement with right-leaning content across the Canadian information ecosystem, with federal Conservative Members of Parliament seeing much higher engagement across social media platforms over the past three years: posts from federal Conservative politicians received 61% more engagement than those of Liberal and NDP politicians combined in 2024. Engagement with federal Conservative politicians on X has increased by 52% since Musk's takeover, an increase inconsistent with explanations based only on the relative popularity of the Conservative Party or usage trends on X by Conservative partisans, while a decline in Liberal engagement is consistent with declining usage of X among Liberal politicians and supporters — indicating that Conservative voices are being amplified on X. Social engagement with Canadian news media has also dramatically changed, with the once-dominant Meta platforms almost completely replaced by TikTok for major, better-resourced Canadian outlets. Smaller local outlets have not successfully pivoted and now receive less than half their previous online engagement, while Canadian right-wing outlets receive the majority of their engagement on X.