When Meta banned the news from its platforms in Canada, it was a huge blow to traditional media — and a massive boost for independent journalists like me.

There’s just one problem: not all of those who call themselves independent journalists are, well, like me.

It all started thanks to Meta’s multi-year skirmish with Canada’s federal government over the Online News Act. Starting in the summer of 2023, Meta blocked Canadian news organizations and links to news stories in reaction to federal legislation requiring platforms to pay journalism companies. Now, Canadians are met with a familiar message when they try to look at any news organization’s page or posts on Instagram or Facebook: “People in Canada can’t see this content.”

While it’s true that Canadians craving journalism with published ethical standards and professional guidelines can still seek it out, that now requires the oh-so-arduous extra step of typing in a URL.

The odds of Canadians stumbling across an intriguing headline in between scrolling through selfies, though, have taken a nosedive. Instead, they see me.

That’s because Meta, in choosing which news outlets to wipe from its platform, used the government’s definition from the Online News Act. One key line saves journalists like me: “regularly employs two or more journalists in Canada.”

Just like that, as the sun came up the morning after Meta’s news purge, independent journalists working alone found their accounts were the sole survivors.

The birth of the content creator/journalist hybrid

After TikTok exploded in use during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, people around the world realized they had the tools to make short-form videos in the palm of their hands. They also had a platform that, far more than any of its predecessors, could skyrocket everyday users to fame overnight.

For many users, this fame has been fleeting. But not for all of them.

Some users danced their way into pop stardom. Some sketch artists improvised their way onto SNL. Some journalists — myself included — managed to leverage their online following to launch their own media organizations.

Instagram quickly moved to introduce its own short-form video product, Reels, to compete with TikTok. At the same time, a whole ecosystem blossomed made up of creators who talk about the news.

Some consider themselves journalists. Others do not. Some of them do original reporting. Others do not. Some appear to follow basic journalistic ethics and standards. Others do not.

That’s where things get dicey — especially after Meta’s ban left a news void on Instagram and Facebook, two of the oldest and most popular social media platforms.

The world of influencer-journalism is still a Wild West.

While some of us view social media as another tool to flex the reporting muscles we’ve carefully honed with our journalism degrees and years of reporting experience, others have come armed with nothing but a surplus of confidence and a dearth of critical thinking skills.

Still, these algorithms treat all of us the same way. In fact, creators untethered by time-consuming and clickbait-killing irritants like due diligence and fact checking sometimes have a distinct algorithmic advantage.

A beginner’s guide to getting your news on social media

This is where Canadians need some tools in their tool kit. It’s important to be able to tell a reliable voice from a shoddy one.

When I set out to make a video, I spend most of my day — if not several days — researching. Depending on the story, I’ll look at studies, read relevant legislation, watch press conferences and seek out expert commentary or background information.

Rather than simply throwing up someone else’s article and speaking about it, I try to independently confirm what I’m planning to tell my audience about. If I can’t independently confirm it but still want to chat about another journalist’s exclusive reporting, I’ll give you the source and tell you I haven’t confirmed it myself.

You can check my work, because I show my work. I show the study titles and articles I’m referencing on screen. I will tell you the names of the experts I’ve interviewed.

If your favourite source isn’t showing their work, that’s a big red flag.

There’s another kind of news-related creator that can be popular on these platforms: aggregator accounts.

These accounts do little-to-no original reporting. Instead, they simply summarize news others have reported.

It can be a dicey practice, because these creators are cribbing from someone else’s work and not always giving credit where it’s due. Some of them will simply tell you the news without showing you the article that’s the original source of the information. The information itself can be reliable, but the creator you’re watching isn’t the primary source of it — despite what might be implied by an authoritative tone. If they haven’t provided that source, it’s much harder to verify whether the information is accurate

Lastly, there are the commentary accounts. These are tricky.

Sometimes, they make it really clear they aren’t journalists and they aren’t experts. In those cases, I think we can give them the grace of recognizing they’re just people who want to chat about the news.

But others do imply they’re journalists, despite having little to no experience in the field. I’m not here to gatekeep — some of these content creators learn quickly and do great work. Unfortunately, though, that’s not true for all of them.

My bullshit detector starts pinging with a few key signs, like if they aren’t showing you reliable sources for the claims they’re making. I also worry when they claim to tell you what no one else will, or if they’re blatantly partisan, never willing to critique their preferred political party. Given we’re all human and inevitably make mistakes (particularly when you’re operating without editors) another red flag is if they’ve never issued a correction.

A final, more subtle, yet incredibly revealing indicator of a snake oil influencer-journalist? If they’re extremely confident in analyzing an impossibly wide range of issues.

Columnists and journalists cultivate expertise in the topics they cover over years. Even then, they still regularly cite academics and experts in their analyses.

Some guy who is able to pump out several videos a day, pontificating smugly on several complex topics, probably has no idea what they’re talking about.

Canadians want this kind of news. We need to listen

Here’s the tough-to-swallow pill: Canadians don’t seem to care that these platforms are a minefield of potential misinformation. They’re using them for news anyway.

A new report from the Canadian Digital Media Research Network found that influencers had the “loudest voices” in the spring federal election.

“Amid the ban on news sharing on Meta and the reduced visibility of news on X, influencers, rather than traditional media, politicians, or political parties, commanded disproportionate attention and drove the circulation of political content across platforms,” the report found. (X is the platform formerly known as Twitter.)

“Their ability to blend entertainment and politics positioned them as powerful agenda setters in ways that can sometimes complicate accountability, transparency and fact-based debate during elections.”

Now, some might be inclined to wag their finger at their fellow Canadians for allowing this to happen. Is it really that hard, after all, to just type out a URL and get proper news?

That’s the wrong instinct. As journalists, it’s our job to meet Canadians where they consume information. The fact that influencers have been allowed to dominate this space is partially our fault.

It’s undeniable that tech platforms have set up a perverse incentive structure that makes it harder for those ethical journalists to compete with a confidently wrong (but catchy!) competitor. But at the very least, we should be trying to produce some content for these platforms, learning how they work and developing an audience — while continuing to uphold the journalism ethics and practices that ensure we’re producing reliable information.

That’s where traditional media has failed to adapt.

It’s not just about the medium. It’s about the messenger

Part of what Canadians like about these influencers is their perceived authenticity, even when that perception might be misplaced. Through a series of videos mixing commentary with news, viewers feel they get a sense of not only what the news is, but the person narrating it to them.

This is something traditional media, with our fixation on avoiding the perception of bias, has failed to understand.

Canadians aren’t stupid. They know there’s a human delivering the news they hear, watch or read. They know that humans have made tiny choices that colour that delivery, no matter how hard the anchor commits to their impression of an unfeeling news robot.

That’s why it’s refreshing to have the news shared with you by someone who, rather than a boxy suit, might be in their pajamas. They make jokes, tell you what they think, all while — ideally — conveying the same information that a stuffy reporter would carefully read, separated from the viewer by an expensive camera, a teleprompter, a desk and a firm blazer.

At least one of those voices isn’t pretending.

Humans can never be truly neutral. We can do our best to convey the facts, but we’re still choosing which stories to tell. We try to speak to experts, but we’re still choosing which experts we interview. We’re choosing what order to present quotes in, whose voice is included, and whose is left out.

In reality, the only thing we can truly strive to avoid is the perception of bias. But when you work endlessly to avoid a perception, you’re entirely vulnerable to the loudest voice that tells you you’ve failed.

We need to accept the fact that the “bothsidesism” and endless pursuit of an impossible objectivity has been a failure. Canadians handed us that failing grade when they showed that they prefer listening to influencers over us.

So we need to be on these platforms. That’s why I’m there. We can’t be precious or snobby about the places Canadians choose to consume their information — no matter how problematic those platforms may be.

And trust me, they can be problematic. To avoid TikTok’s very imperfect content moderation, users have to use pretend words like “unalived” instead of saying “death.” It’s appalling to have to call murder “unaliving” or find cutesy euphemisms for sexual assault to avoid important stories getting buried by misguided moderation. I’ve regularly been frustrated by my reporting getting limited reach due to the limitations of these platforms.

That doesn’t mean we can abandon the effort, though.

If we do, we risk untrained voices filling the void we leave. Sometimes, these untrained voices can prove to have phenomenal journalistic chops. But not always. Sometimes Canadians show they’ve learned to critically engage with the material they’re consuming from those voices. But not always.

So we need to flood the zone with accurate, reliable reporting. Not only that, but we need to do so in a way that resonates with Canadians.

That doesn’t mean journalists need to stop writing columns or airing traditional newscasts. But it does mean we need to be willing to take risks in addition to those offerings.

While news outlets can’t be on Meta platforms, individual journalists can. Their organizations can also still show up on other popular places like TikTok and YouTube.

Not only that, but they have to stop pretending to be machines. News outlets have to allow their journalists to show a shred of who they are and how they think, then trust Canadians to use that information to critically engage with their reporting.

We have to show our humanity, our humour and even — gasp — our opinions. When all of those are backed up by reliable facts and strong journalism, we stand a chance in the battle against rising disinformation.

But first, we have to get in the fight.