For many, the specter of foreign interference in domestic matters was always associated with countries like Russia or China, but a faction pushing for Alberta independence is gaining greater attention from social media accounts based in the United States.

Tech blogger Kevin Andrews is calling it “politics without borders” and says social media is making local politics increasingly murky.

Andrews says it’s all about shaping opinion, and how easily a person’s attention can be engineered online.

“If it’s coordinated, and the accounts are outside, whether it’s legal or not, it can still pump oxygen into a local issue, and I think that can then flood the comments and everything else.”