A sign directs voters to a polling station in Calgary on April 28. Despite creating 23 per cent of TikTok posts about Canada's election, U.S. influencers drew half of views.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
A small number of TikTok accounts, with millions of views, dominated political discourse on the social media platform during Canada’s general election campaign, with U.S. influencers playing a big role in shaping narratives, a new report analyzing foreign influence online has found.
A report by Reset Tech, a global non-profit, found that 100 TikTok accounts – including some that were politically partisan – generated almost two-thirds of viral political views during the campaign leading up to the April 28 vote.
John Matheson, Canada lead for Reset Tech, said young people increasingly get their news from social media, where many influencers have a political agenda. He said during the election campaign “foreign influencers shaped our news feeds” and he criticized a lack of accountability.
U.S. influencers posting on TikTok about the election drew half of views, despite making only 23 per cent of the posts. Although Canadian accounts produced more than three quarters of viral posts about the election on TikTok, they captured only half of views, the report said.
The top U.S. creator was Aaron Parnas, a political commentator who is critical of the Donald Trump administration and has more than 3.9 million followers on TikTok, according to Reset Tech’s analysis.
The U.S. creator’s posts on Canadian politics were the third most popular in the general election campaign, behind CBC news and CTV news, which had 44,845,697 and 27,466,598 total views respectively, according to the report.
Mr. Parnas had 27,181,200 views during the campaign, according to the Reset Tech analysis.
“Social media is the most democratizing force that news media has ever seen, whether in America or in Canada,” Mr. Parnas said in an e-mail. “I am proud to see that my coverage of US-Canada relations and the elections in Canada reached voters across the country.”
The fourth most popular creator during the campaign was Conservative-leaning Canadian influencer Mario Zelaya, whose videos were critical of Prime Minister Mark Carney. The report says during the campaign he had 25,063,076 views.
Mr. Zelaya, from Burlington, Ont., has a measured presentation style, often drawing attention to video clips and suggesting people watch them. In one election post, he seized on Canadian comedian Mike Myers’s backing for Mr. Carney, saying he is living in the U.S.
In an e-mail Mr. Zelaya said: “I rarely look at the viewership data myself as I do not monetize the content nor sell sponsorship.”
“I focus on providing facts,” he added. “Generally speaking, my goal is change.”
Reset Tech, which is based in London with staff in Britain, the U.S., Europe and Canada, defined political content as posts on TikTok related to Canadian politicians, policy issues and foreign affairs affecting Canadian politics.
“While Canadian accounts produced 77.1 per cent of viral posts, foreign accounts, overwhelmingly U.S.-based captured nearly 50 per cent of viral views demonstrating an asymmetry in influence,” the report said.
The global non-profit monitored the online environment for signs of foreign interference and platform manipulation using open-source intelligence techniques and tools.
It also tracked Chinese-language social media and found that some Chinese-language platforms recycled conspiracy-related content about the election from other social media platforms.
It also found that a number of Canadian Chinese community websites shared Canadian political content using network infrastructure allegedly linked to Chinese state-affiliated news sites.
It said some presented themselves as independent voices, while advancing Chinese Communist Party narratives.
The report also details how election-themed scam news stories were posted on Facebook and X, as part of a fraud operation impersonating political stories by major Canadian news groups, including CBC.
The ads fabricated news about party leaders Mark Carney, Pierre Poilievre and Jagmeet Singh, according to the report. They aimed to drive users to fraudulent investment schemes, often involving cryptocurrency.
PM Carney says China is a foreign interference, geopolitical threat for Canada
The report said digital platforms should be held accountable for persistent scam advertising, saying some election-themed ads on Meta-owned platforms, including Facebook, that lured Canadians into fraudulent schemes remained active even after takedown requests.
“By legally obligating tech platforms to uphold the integrity of the ads they profit from, transnational criminal networks will lose a significant revenue stream,” the report said.
CBC spokesperson Kerry Kelly said there has been an alarming rise in fake ads and news stories online and on social media platforms.
“CBC is committed to fighting disinformation, which deliberately misleads the public and puts at risk their trust in legitimate media outlets,” she said.
Meta spokesperson Julia Perreira said the company is “heavily invested in fighting frauds and scams on our platform; any suggestion to the contrary is simply untrue.”
“We aggressively enforce against scams and worked with officials during and after the election to remove ads that violate our policies, as well as the ones featured in the report,” she said, saying Meta empowers people to protect themselves with warnings and tools.
TikTok said the company is reviewing the report but said the Reset Tech investigation was not comprehensive and may not accurately reflect election-related content.
During the 2025 federal election campaign, TikTok had an election task force, and says it worked to enforce firm policies against election misinformation, misleading AI-generated content, violent or hateful conduct, and other harmful material.