Oct 5, 2026 · 1 hr 21 min · 12 segments
Canadaland producer and host Noor Azrieh joins the show to chat Brad Bradford's AI astroturfing app and the effectiveness of social media in local elections. Support the show…
Um, so as reported by Rory White at the National Observer, this was last week, Toronto mayoral candidate Brad Bradford has been using Victory, which is a, uh, it's a, it's a political organizing app which helps a political campaign direct their supporters to support them in the ways that help them.
You know, anytime you have a, some political volunteer showing up at your door, they, they have some CRM, some contact records management tool that they're using to track which houses they visited, you know, see who's a one, who's a supporter.
What's really strange is that the app also monitors social media activity across various platforms, and then directs supporters of a campaign, uh, who's ever using this tool, Brad Bradford in this case, directs their supporters to engage in those posts, even going as far as to come up with AI-generated posts for them to share in response, and, uh, provides even incentives via points and, uh, merch giveaways if they end up following through on those AI-generated replies.
Um, I found this to be very shocking, very upsetting, and a sign of the times that is probably manipulating our elections in, in ways far more profound than we can even understand right now.
Chris, honestly, I wanna start off by shouting out Rory White from Canada's National Observer.
He just signed up to be a volunteer where he was directed into this whole thing.
So, I mean, it really does show that it, it takes these independent outlets to actually come up with this information, yeah.
For sure, and, like, uh, his beat is covering tech and democracy, and I think right now it's particularly interesting in the era of AI.
But Chris, I wanna talk about, like, what the AI, uh, like, campaign messages sound like and read like.
Don't let them say you haven't tried." Like, dude, that does not sound human whatsoever, and I think what boggles my mind is, like, how does a series of al- non-human sounding posts, like, how, how much of an impact does that really make at a time where I think a lot of people are conscious of AI, but also that a lot of the stuff that they're interacting with online isn't real? Like, to me, this is just, it's so clearly AI that I, I don't think I would fall for it, but I'm sure, like, there, there's a lot of people who would.
Um, so as reported by Rory White at the National Observer, this was last week, Toronto mayoral candidate Brad Bradford has been using Victory, which is a, uh, it's a, it's a political organizing app which helps a political campaign direct their supporters to support them in the ways that help them.
You know, anytime you have a, some political volunteer showing up at your door, they, they have some CRM, some contact records management tool that they're using to track which houses they visited, you know, see who's a one, who's a supporter.
What's really strange is that the app also monitors social media activity across various platforms, and then directs supporters of a campaign, uh, who's ever using this tool, Brad Bradford in this case, directs their supporters to engage in those posts, even going as far as to come up with AI-generated posts for them to share in response, and, uh, provides even incentives via points and, uh, merch giveaways if they end up following through on those AI-generated replies.
Um, I found this to be very shocking, very upsetting, and a sign of the times that is probably manipulating our elections in, in ways far more profound than we can even understand right now.
Chris, honestly, I wanna start off by shouting out Rory White from Canada's National Observer.
He just signed up to be a volunteer where he was directed into this whole thing.
So, I mean, it really does show that it, it takes these independent outlets to actually come up with this information, yeah.
For sure, and, like, uh, his beat is covering tech and democracy, and I think right now it's particularly interesting in the era of AI.
But Chris, I wanna talk about, like, what the AI, uh, like, campaign messages sound like and read like.
Don't let them say you haven't tried." Like, dude, that does not sound human whatsoever, and I think what boggles my mind is, like, how does a series of al- non-human sounding posts, like, how, how much of an impact does that really make at a time where I think a lot of people are conscious of AI, but also that a lot of the stuff that they're interacting with online isn't real? Like, to me, this is just, it's so clearly AI that I, I don't think I would fall for it, but I'm sure, like, there, there's a lot of people who would.
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