With Canadian News Outlets Barred from Facebook and Instagram, Bad Actors Are Filling the Void with Election Misinformation
As Canadians go to the polls to elect a new parliament, NewsGuard found that most false claims on Meta’s platforms targeted PM Mark Carney
By Sam Howard and Nicole Dirks
As Canada approaches its first federal election since Meta barred the nation's news outlets from sharing content on its platforms, users on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads have filled the void with false claims — mostly targeting Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, a NewsGuard analysis found.
Since March 2025, NewsGuard has identified eight false claims related to the Canadian election, seven of them targeting Carney and another conveying false polling results. Collectively, posts advancing these claims have accrued at least one million views and 116,000 likes and other reactions on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.
With fewer real news outlets now on these platforms, there is little chance that Canadians — 25 percent of whom told a Reuters Institute survey even after legitimate news was banned from the platforms that they get their news from Facebook — will see any actual news on the platforms that counters these hoaxes.
On Monday, April 28, Canadians will go to polls to elect a new parliament. The two most popular candidates for prime minister are the incumbent prime minister and Liberal Party head Carney and Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. The most recent polls favor Carney.
Meta started banning mainstream news outlets from its social media platforms Facebook and Instagram in August 2023, soon after the Canadian government passed the Online News Act, which requires digital platforms to compensate news outlets when their content is posted on their platforms. (There have been conflicting reports on the law’s impact on Threads, Meta’s microblogging platform with a user base dwarfed by that of Facebook and Instagram, although more news has been showing up on Threads than on the other Meta platforms, and some Canadian news outlets maintain active accounts there.)
Meta said in an August 2023 statement that “we know the people using our platforms don’t come to us for news.” Yet a June 2024 survey by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found that 25 percent of Canadians use Facebook for news, while 13 percent get news from Instagram.
With credible Canadian news organizations no longer providing their news on Facebook and Instagram, misinformation and hyper partisan sources in Canada have been more than willing to jump in. In just the past two months, NewsGuard has identified the following false narratives targeting the Canadian federal elections, listed in descending order of engagement (likes and reactions) on Meta platforms:
That Carney said that U.S. President Donald Trump’s supporters did “generations-long damage to the United States”
That Carney sold off all of Canada’s gold reserves when he led the Bank of Canada
That a photo shows Carney in a swimming pool with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein
That Canadian law prevents Carney from serving in parliament
That Canadian law prevents Carney from serving as Liberal Party leader
That a polling firm projected that the far-right People’s Party of Canada would increase its House of Commons representation from 0 of 343 seats to 84
That Carney is related to his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, through Carney’s mother, which is evidence of nepotism
That in response to a question, Carney uttered a Satanic incantation
The false claim with the largest engagement identified by NewsGuard was a Threads post stating that Carney accused Trump voters of doing “generations-long damage to the United States.” The post — by user @moyers.jeff, who typically shares liberal commentary on U.S. politics — featured a video of Carney giving public remarks on March 27, 2025, with a caption stating: “‘They’ll never accept it, but everyone who cast a vote for Donald Trump did real, generations-long damage to the United States and the west in exchange for essentially nothing of value.’”
The post suggested that this quote came from Carney. However, NewsGuard reviewed Carney’s March 27, 2025, speech and found that he never made such a comment. Nevertheless, Moyers’ post received 953,000 views, 79,900 likes, and 9,600 reposts by April 24, 2025.
The claim was quickly picked up by other liberals who were apparently pleased to see such a comment by Carney, whose popularity in Canada has been boosted by his vocal opposition to U.S. President Trump’s tariffs and to Trump’s repeated suggestions that Canada become the 51st U.S. state.
While liberals seized on this false claim, the other Canadian narratives identified by NewsGuard were primarily advanced by conservative critics of Carney — a relative newcomer to Canadian politics and thus, a politician who is particularly vulnerable to false claims about his values and his experience.
The most viral claim identified by NewsGuard on Instagram — that Carney sold all of Canada’s gold supply while he led the Bank of Canada from 2008 to 2013 — was advanced by Mario Zelaya, a Canadian conservative commentator with an Instagram audience of 150,000 followers. Zelaya said in an April 13, 2025, video receiving 10,020 likes, “Did you know that Mark Carney sold all of our gold reserves?”
In fact, the nation’s gold reserves actually grew while Carney was the central bank’s governor, and besides, the gold supply was not part of his purview.
Fact Checks in a Vacuum
Even when Canadian media are quick to debunk false election claims, that information can be barred from Facebook and Instagram users who may have been duped in the absence of journalism debunking the false claim.
For example, on April 10, 2025, the Canadian Press news agency published an article debunking the claim that Carney would be prevented from serving in Parliament due to a Canadian law barring government workers from the legislative body. Those advancing this claim cited the fact that Carney had once led a Liberal Party task force and served as an advisor to Trudeau. The news agency correctly pointed out that Carney is not barred from office because the rule refers to current government posts, not previous ones.
However, the Canadian Press did not post its fact check on Facebook, Instagram, or Threads.
Meta, the Liberal Party of Canada, and the Conservative Party of Canada did not respond to NewsGuard’s requests for comment.
Reality Check members can read NewsGuard’s Misinformation Fingerprints for the eight false claims related to the Canadian election here.