A municipality in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland has abandoned X, and others are considering it, while a federal MP asks for an investigation into whether the once-credible social media platform could interfere in the upcoming federal election.
Citing District of North Vancouver (DNV) Chief Administrative Officer David Stuart, CBC reports that X fell victim to “falling public engagement and concerns raised by locals about the social media platform.”
But while DNV shuttered its X account in January, CBC says, and other B.C. communities and local agencies are considering similar actions, cities in other parts of the country are keeping the channel open.
Stuart said the decision to cut ties predated the U.S. presidential inauguration Jan. 20, where the world saw X owner Elon Musk deliver not one, but two Nazi salutes to the crowd—not to mention his systematic and likely illegal efforts to dismantle U.S. government departments in the weeks since.
“Some folks used the words ‘bigoted’ and “homophobic’,” Stuart told CBC. “What was raised was the question as to why we would use this forum for a public institution, and is it appropriate?”
So while “I don’t want to pass judgment on Mr. Musk,” he added, “I am responsible for understanding what the views and interests are of the community. When they raise issues like the ones they have raised, I feel I have an obligation to respond in some appropriate manner.”
When CBC surveyed other Lower Mainland communities, a City of Vancouver spokesperson said the municipality, with 269,000 X followers, was “currently exploring the operational impacts of deactivating the City of Vancouver’s X account and how this may affect communicating with users across the city.”
A New Westminster spokesperson said the community might change its practices in the future, while Surrey, B.C. is not considering any change at this time. Metro Vancouver Transit Police received “strong support after posting that it would be using BlueSky more often going forward,” CBC says.
Outside British Columbia, municipal spokespeople in Edmonton, Toronto, and Halifax said they still use X to connect with citizens where they congregate online.
“X remains a critical channel for communicating with residents,” Halifax Regional Municipality spokesperson Brynn Budden told The Energy Mix in an email. “With close to 80K followers, it is an effective way to quickly disseminate information to a wide audience. This is particularly important during severe weather and emergency events.”
City of Toronto spokesperson Alexandra Dinsmore said much the same, adding that the city “continually monitors the social media landscape for opportunities to enhance how it connects with residents, including which platforms are best-suited for this.”
Toronto “has a process in place for monitoring and responding to misinformation and disinformation to help ensure that Torontonians have access to accurate, transparent and timely information on whichever platforms they use,” Dinsmore wrote in an email.
The published social media policy [pdf] for the City of Edmonton, which faced a flood of disinformation and fringe conspiracy theories in 2023 around a local 15-minute cities plan, declares that comments must be “constructive, helpful, or insightful.” It specifies that “trolls and trolling comments are not permitted” and commits to blocking access for repeat violators.
The cities are responding—or not—as the European Union probes whether X has used its in-house algorithms to amplify the far-right politicians that Musk appears to favour, up to and including Germany’s extremist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party. The platform “has been under investigation since December 2023 under the EU’s content law—known as the Digital Services Act (DSA)—over how it tackles the spread of illegal content and information manipulation,” the Guardian reports. “The company has been accused of manipulating the platform’s systems to give far-right posts and politicians greater visibility over other political groups.”
In Canada, federal MP Charlie Angus (NDP, Timmins—James Bay) is asking Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault to launch a similar investigation, describing X under Musk’s ownership as a “pathway for Russian misinformation and the rise of hate and threats in Canada.” He asked citizens to amplify his call to action in a post on Bluesky.
“In the recent American election, Mr. Musk spent over $390 million to support a myriad of conservative candidates, nearly five times more than the $83 million spent by all Canadian political parties combined in the 2021 federal election, all while using his social media platform to amplify his candidates’ political messages,” Angus wrote [pdf]. “His meddling in foreign affairs has also been criticized by the governments of the United Kingdom, Norway, Germany, France, and Spain. Questions of overt support for fascist and extremist causes are now being directly linked to Mr. Musk.”
Closer to home, “Mr. Musk turned his attention to Canadian political affairs, praising the current leader of the Conservative Party, aligning himself with Canadian far-right influencers and their platforms, and criticizing the current Prime Minister.”
Technology expert Graye Williams said North Vancouver’s decision didn’t surprise him. “Did North Van lose a valuable communications tool? They did when Elon bought Twitter,” he told CBC. “Just because something was useful before doesn’t mean it’s going to be useful in the future. North Van is probably famously also not on Orkut or Myspace.”
He added that the shifting digital landscape is tough to navigate for public institutions and companies alike.
“I look at the way we communicate on the Internet and the Internet itself, and it feels like it should be a utility,” he said. “If it’s the information superhighway, they’re the roads. So why are we putting the future of our communications in the hands of private corporations?”
While Pérrault has not yet responded to Angus’ request, at least one fixture in the Canadian climate and sustainability community has completed its journey from X to Bluesky.
“Canada’s Clean50 is an unabashed supporter of truth and transparency, and has reached the sad conclusion that Elon Musk and [Meta CEO] Mark Zuckerberg have both made the decision to render all four of their platforms into sources of mis- and disinformation,” Clean50 founder Gavin Pitchford wrote on LinkedIn. “As a result, our profiles on X, Insta, Facebook, and Threads have been deleted or will go dark.”
When Musk “is on wide, full-screen, and proud display, deliberately saluting as the SS did 90 years ago,” Pitchford added, “none of us can be complacent.”
