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The mayor of British Columbia's capital says she's deleting Facebook because it's no longer a space for healthy dialogue.

For years, Megan Boler's research focused on the power of social media as a democratizing force, giving voice to the voiceless and empowering everyday people to come together and participate more meaningfully in how they are governed.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is admitting his platform failed to protect the data of its users and is planning to audit all apps that "had access to large amounts of information" before it introduced restrictions in 2014.

The Canadian data scientist who admitted to helping political parties score electoral wins by exploiting the private information of millions of Facebook users also oversaw a short-lived pilot project for the federal Liberals shortly after the 2015 election.

Acting minister for democratic institutions Scott Brison plans to meet with Canada's cyber spy agency and domestic spy service to assess threats to the electoral system and the protection of personal information.

"Let's say he had boundary issues on data even back then," said the insider, who noted that Christopher Wylie's descriptions of his methods in media reports sounded familiar. "He effectively pitched an earlier version of exactly this to us back in 2009 and we said, 'No.'"

At age 17, Christopher Wylie worked in the office of Canada's opposition leader, who at that time was then-Liberal leader Stéphane Dion, said one of the reports.

Canadian Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly has delivered a stern warning to internet giants such as Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, that the federal government is planning a crackdown.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is rejecting suggestions his government should have moved to tax foreign web giants in his recent budget, saying he doesn't want to hurt Canadian taxpayers.

Canada is not immune to cybermischief aimed at suppressing the number of people who vote or manipulating how they vote. But once ballots are cast, not even the most sophisticated cyberattack could tamper with the results.

Founder Mark Zuckerberg outlined the rationale in a Facebook post, saying content from "businesses, brands and media" had begun to crowd out the more personal moments which he said are at the core of the network.

Various computer scientists, researchers, lawyers and other techies have recently been attending bi-monthly meetings in Montreal to discuss life's big questions — as they relate to our increasingly intelligent machines.

Facebook has launched partnerships with journalism outlets like National Observer and media literacy groups like MediaSmarts to help stop the viral spread of fake news.

Citizens in the West must continue standing up for minority rights in order to help fight off the forces trying to destabilize democracies around the world, Hillary Clinton said on Oct. 23, 2017.

Facebook has introduced a new "cyber hygiene" guide. But the social media giant and the federal government both admit much more needs to be done to safeguard the 2019 election.