Digital Disinformation Threats and Ethnocultural Diasporas

The digital information space is a growing arena for contestation and manipulation by threat actors. Examples of foreign interference during democratic elections, disinformation and foreign influence campaigns, and the transnational transfer of disinformation in a diversifying digital landscape pose discrete threats and challenges for liberal and plural democracies like Canada. Yet, disinformation is not experienced universally or uniformly, suggesting the need to understand differential experiences to and harms of disinformation for subpopulations to effectively address the emerging challenge. This chapter explores the complex and evolving digital information landscape of ethnocultural diasporas in Canada, by asking how to understand differential exposures to and experiences with digital disinformation. Drawing on research on the study of disinformation and the experience of ethnocultural diasporas and racialized and marginalized communities, this chapter highlights two distinct diaspora experiences in the digital information space: (i) the use of private chat and direct messaging apps, and (ii) the identity-based vulnerabilities that include the targeting of disinformation campaigns and digitally subversive activities to ethnocultural diasporas. In doing so, the chapter notes the need for tailored mitigation strategies that consider the different disinformation experiences of ethnocultural diasporas, ones that move beyond conventional legal-regulatory approaches. Instead, mitigation strategies must be developed in ways that build trust, capacity, and resiliency within these communities to effectively counter the spread of disinformation. Building strategies based on connection and empowerment can help lessen the negative impacts of disinformation while simultaneously upholding liberal democratic values and ideals.