Democracy is fragile. As a federal election approaches in Canada, it’s important to know the warning signs of extremism and anti-democratic practices that are now routine in the U.S.
Author: Matthew Lebo - Professor, Department of Political Science, Western University
Consider making an account on a Canadian Mastodon instance. Mastodon is a decentralized open-source social media platform similar to X/Twitter. There are many Canadian based general interest “instances” where you can make an account: Mstdn.ca, TheCanadian.Social, CoSocial.ca or any of many others you can find at MastodonServer.ca.
For some Canadian themed news sources, I recommend the following Mastodon follows. You can follow pretty much any Mastodon account from any Mastodon instance.
Following #Hashtags is also a good way to stay in the loop on a topic. For now, I’d suggest #Canada , #CdnPoli , #ElbowsUp and #Never51st .
There are also Canadian instances for other Federated services, but Mastodon is probably a good gateway. Even if it isn’t your primary social media, at least you’ll have a backstop of news and a way to connect without the algorithms manipulating what to show you. Hope to see you out there.
#My Mastodon Copypasta (formatted for Reddit)
Consider making an account on a Canadian Mastodon instance. Mastodon is a decentralized open-source social media platform similar to X/Twitter. There are many Canadian based general interest “instances” where you can make an account: Mstdn.ca, TheCanadian.Social, CoSocial.ca or any of many others you can find at MastodonServer.ca.
There is no one company fine-tuning an algorithm to entertain you, sell you crypto, and radicalize you, so you’ll need to do some work on setting up your feed. Check out Fedi.Directory, Interesting Accounts to Follow on Mastodon and the Fediverse and Fedi.Tips- An Unofficial Guide to Mastodon and the Fediverse.
For some Canadian themed news sources, I recommend the following Mastodon follows. You can follow pretty much any Mastodon account from any Mastodon instance.
Following #Hashtags is also a good way to stay in the loop on a topic. For now, I’d suggest #Canada , #CdnPoli , #ElbowsUp and #Never51st .
There are also Canadian instances for other Federated services, but Mastodon is probably a good gateway. Even if it isn’t your primary social media, at least you’ll have a backstop of news and a way to connect without the algorithms manipulating what to show you. Hope to see you out there.