BR-Influencers-Politics

OTTAWA — Influencers have more reach on five major social media platforms than either news media or politicians, a new report says.

The report was released today by the McGill University and University of Toronto-led Media Ecosystem Observatory.

It focuses specifically on posts from individuals and institutions on X, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Bluesky.

The researchers say they identified just over a thousand influencers and collected about four million of their posts from January 2024 to July 2025.

Over that time period, politicians were responsible for just over a million posts while media outlets accounted for just under three million.

The report says that means a significant portion of the political content Canadians see on the major platforms comes directly from influencers.

The Canadian Press