# The new policy messengers have followers, not mandates — Voice Affairs 11 > On 19 October, Albertans voted on whether their province should remain in Canada or begin the process towards a binding vote on separation. Online,… Source: https://voice-sc.com/voice-affairs/issue-11/ Voice Affairs — Issue 11 · 30 October 2026 # The new policy messengers have followers, not mandates By Jacopo Garone ## The Briefing Once a month, we publish an editorial on how influence works in Europe today, a legislative radar on what is moving in Brussels, and a note on the work behind it. Written for the decision-maker’s chair, and for those who advise it. Issue 11 · 30 October 2026 ## The new policy messengers have followers, not mandates On 19 October, Albertans voted on whether their province should remain in Canada or begin the process towards a binding vote on separation. Online, the result looked almost settled. A study by McGill's Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy found that 114 influencer accounts had captured roughly half of all engagement on the referendum since January 2025, and that pro-independence voices took around 80% of the engagement on relevant posts. Then the votes were counted, and Albertans chose to remain by roughly three to one. So do creators matter or not?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 01 Editorial Content By Jacopo Garone, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Voice Strategic Consulting THE NEW POLICY MESSENGERS HAVE FOLLOWERS, NOT MANDATES. On 19 October, Albertans voted on whether their province should remain in Canada or begin the process towards a binding vote on separation. Online, the result looked almost settled. A study by McGill's Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy found that 114 influencer accounts had captured roughly half of all engagement on the referendum since January 2025, and that pro-independence voices took around 80% of the engagement on relevant posts. Then the votes were counted, and Albertans chose to remain by roughly three to one. So do creators matter or not? The comfortable answer is that they do not: online noise is not public opinion, and the ballot box proved it. I think that reading is half right, and the half it misses is the one that matters for anyone whose work depends on how their issue is understood. A debate run without a mandate Look first at who was speaking. On X, the influencers were 0.5% of the accounts in the debate and generated 61% of the engagement. No elected party campaigned on the leave side. Posts about secession earned these influencers about 3.8 times the engagement of their usual content, which explains why so many of them kept posting about it. And the researchers found "no evidence of a covert, coordinated or disproportionate campaign by the U.S. or Russia". This was not a foreign operation. It was a domestic attention market, working as designed. Alberta is an extreme case, but not an isolated one. According to the Reuters Institute's Digital News Report 2026, 27% of respondents across 48 markets came across news from creators or news influencers in the previous week. They find creators easier to understand and more relatable than traditional outlets, and also less trustworthy. More and more public debates, including the ones that end in regulation, now have messengers that nobody elected, nobody appointed and, quite often, nobody can say who pays. What they win even when they lose The creators lost the vote. They did not lose everything, and three things they won will outlast the referendum. The first is the agenda. For more than a year they decided what the conversation was about, and with no elected party on their side, there was no one with a mandate to answer for it. The second is the record. Images flagged as AI-generated in pro-independence posts on X rose from 4.4% to 15.5% between January 2025 and August 2026, figures the researchers treat as upper bounds. When they asked Google's AI Overview and ChatGPT the same questions six times each, on whether taxes, pensions and oil prices would rise or fall, only 28 of 60 combinations gave a consistent answer. AI Overview's top sources were YouTube and Facebook, and when it cited a Facebook group, it repeated that group's claim 44% of the time. What creators publish today is what answer engines serve tomorrow. The third is trust. In the researchers' survey, only 59% of Albertans were confident that Elections Alberta would run the vote fairly. The referee lost credibility without any player winning. Opportunity, with conditions None of this makes creators the enemy. I see them as an opportunity, including for organisations in regulated sectors. They reach people that institutions and press releases no longer reach, and they can explain a biorefinery, a grid tariff or a capital requirement in a way most corporate communication cannot. But the opportunity comes with conditions, and I see three. 01. The first is disclosure. The Alberta researchers state that they could not observe paid placement. Neither can the audience. Europe has already seen where this goes: when Meta and Google stopped carrying political advertising in the EU, one researcher tracking the aftermath warned that political influence does not disappear but shifts into less transparent channels, including influencer campaigns with undisclosed payments. If a creator is paid to talk about a policy, a product or a company, that should be declared, every time. It is the principle I argued for last month: a message is worth what the name behind it is worth, and that includes the name that paid for it. 02. The second is alignment with the platforms. Labels for paid content and for AI-generated material only work if they are applied consistently, and today they are not. When the rules are unclear, platforms tend to withdraw rather than adapt, and the activity does not disappear. It moves somewhere less visible. 03. The third, and the one I believe in most, is culture. Last month I cited a study in which a single line warning people that an AI may be trying to persuade them halved its effect. Audiences that understand how content is made, and who is behind it, are harder to manipulate by anyone. What changes if you operate in a regulated sector Four practical consequences follow. 01. First, map creators as stakeholders, alongside ministers, officials and journalists. Know who shapes the conversation on your issue, who listens to them, and what they earn from it. 02. Second, measure opinion, not noise. In Alberta, around 80% of the engagement went one way and about three quarters of the votes went the other. Reacting to engagement alone is how organisations make the wrong decisions under pressure. 03. Third, build the record. Answer engines and journalists draw on what is published, attributable and consistent. If your organisation is not in that record, someone else will be. 04. Fourth, if you work with creators, say so. The organisations that disclose first will be the ones still believed when the rules catch up. At Voice, creators now sit on the same stakeholder map as ministers and journalists. The question we ask is the same for all of them: who listens to them, and why. Who speaks for your issue Alberta showed that followers are not a mandate. It also showed that you can lose a vote and still shape the agenda, the record and the trust that every future debate depends on. So here is the question worth asking this month: when the debate on your sector moves online, will the people speaking for it be the ones your stakeholders trust, and will anyone know who they are speaking for? Sources and further reading Ross, C., Steel, B., Hobson, D. et al., Alberta's Referendum, Online: Influencers, AI Content, Foreign Interest, and the Attention Economy Ahead of the October 19 Vote, Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy, 10 September 2026 (mediatechdemocracy.com) Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Digital News Report 2026, 16 June 2026 (reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk) Elections Alberta, 2026 referendum results (elections.ab.ca) Votta, F., What data reveals about Meta and Google's political ad ban in the EU, Tech Policy Press, 3 November 2025 (techpolicy.press) Orchinik, R. and Rand, D., A light-touch AI literacy intervention helps protect against AI political persuasion, arXiv preprint 2609.16432, September 2026 02 Legislative Radar By Thembi 01. ENERGY & FUELS: A METHANE DELAY THAT IS NOT YET LAW In October, the Commission proposed to postpone certain import-related obligations and methane-intensity reporting under the EU Methane Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2024/1787), citing concerns over energy supply. Parliament then backed longer delays, together with changes to the reporting deadlines for EU oil and gas operators. The changes remain subject to agreement between Parliament and the Council. Meanwhile, the Commission is consulting on draft templates for emissions reports by EU operators and undertakings. Feedback is due by 6 November, and the Commission plans to adopt the templates by the end of 2026. Why it matters: a proposed delay is not a delay. Until an amending regulation takes effect, the existing requirements apply, and businesses should keep preparing against them. The consultation is the place to flag unclear requirements and practical reporting difficulties. Want to flag a reporting issue before 6 November? GET IN TOUCH 02. AI & DIGITAL REGULATION: CLOUD SOVEREIGNTY LEVELS: PUBLIC PROCUREMENT FIRST, YOUR SECTOR NEXT? On 17 September, the European Parliament announced the referral of the Cloud and AI Development Act (2026/0138(COD)) to its committees responsible for industry and energy and for the internal market. The proposal introduces four sovereignty assurance levels for cloud services, covering data location, independence from third countries and European control. Public procurement is the central focus: risk assessments would determine the levels required for sensitive public-sector activities. For private businesses, Article 31 initially provides for voluntary assessments in the relevant sectors covered by the EU's NIS2 cybersecurity directive. Under specified conditions, the Commission could subsequently require assessments and mitigation measures through delegated acts. Why it matters: energy, transport and other critical-sector businesses should scrutinise the triggers and safeguards for any future obligations. Supplier availability, migration costs and operational continuity are the concrete issues to raise during the legislative negotiations. Want to know when voluntary could become mandatory for your sector? [EXPLORE THEMBI](https://www.thembi.ai/) 03 News and More IN CASE YOU MISSED IT WHEN CONTENT COSTS NOTHING, RELIABILITY BECOMES THE SCARCE GOOD At the Digital Innovation Forum 2026 in Cernobbio, most of the conversations that stayed with us ended up in the same place: AI and information. When content costs almost nothing to produce, telling what is reliable from what is not gets harder every month. For anyone working in advocacy and public debate, it is the question that matters most right now, and the thread that runs through this month's editorial. [Read our notes from Cernobbio](https://lnkd.in/p/dgPmeY4Y) BIO BUNKER IS READY. THE SUPPLY CHAIN IS THE TEST As International Maritime Organization targets push shipping emissions down towards 2030 and 2040, Adamant Group's Michele Rinaldi explains in a new video why marine biofuel is ready to play its part: it is already available and runs on existing engines and infrastructure. The open question is no longer the technology, but a supply chain able to deliver reliably and at scale. Operators that move early keep more control over how they manage the transition. [Watch the video](https://lnkd.in/p/dhJ5Rjyq) EIGHTY YEARS OF NOT FACING COMPLEXITY ALONE A.P.I. Associazione Piccole e Medie Industrie celebrated its 80th anniversary at Villa Clerici, with the Lombardy Region, the City of Milan, Confartigianato Imprese and SMEunited. Founded in 1946, the association now represents almost 2,000 companies and more than 39,000 employees across Milan, Monza Brianza, Pavia and Lodi. Director-General Stefano Valvason summed up its purpose in one line: "No entrepreneur should face this complexity alone." Voice is proud to be a member. [See the anniversary](https://lnkd.in/p/dywYZ2VE) 04 Leading lines By Stefano Musso, Senior Advisor, Voice Strategic Consulting A monthly column by Stefano Musso, Senior Advisor at Voice, on leadership as a form of strategic communication: what leaders say, and what their behaviour says for them. WHY IS SURFING BECOMING SO POPULAR? Over the last few years I have noticed an often illogical and unnecessary use of words and symbols borrowed from surfing: in advertising, on radio talk shows, on social media, in motivational posts. It makes me ask why surfing has become so fashionable, and whether it is being used in the right way. The surfing community is not a monolith. It is an archipelago of different worlds. There are the real surfers, who have watched decades, storms and trends pass along their own coastlines. There are those who started recently and mean to keep going, and those who spent a week at a surf camp for a change of scenery. Talking about surfers as if they were all the same is a bit like saying that everyone who eats pasta has the same taste. So how can a supermarket, a fashion label or an ice-cream brand be associated with a surfboard? A communication expert would call it nonsense, unless the campaign is carried out with intelligence, consistency and relevance. Before using surfing in advertising, you need to know the values of the community. That is the point. Connecting with it takes time, small steps and respect. Those who know surfers understand that surfing is rarely about a product or the status of owning it. The real values are different: social connection, simplicity, brotherhood and freedom. They are not values to put on display lightly, and they come with behaviours, skills and healthy attitudes. A bit like the inner world a leader should build over time. This is why I talk about leadership differently, through the metaphor of surfing: a sport that is growing in popularity, yet remains poorly understood for what it can teach, even to those who have never stood on a board. So why not learn a little about leadership from surfing? After all, a surfer can easily become a good leader, while the reverse is not always true. [Read the full piece on Substack](https://substack.com/@stefanomusso/note/p-205507766) Stefano's new book is out now. [Discover the book](https://amzn.eu/d/0ijbjyfp) If AI is changing how influence works, the real question is who is shaping the rules of visibility - and who is reacting too late. We will continue exploring this throughout the year. Enjoyed this edition? Forward it to a colleague or subscribe to receive future insights from Voice.