Earlier today, respected civic affairs reporter Frances Bula published a story in the Globe and Mail, writing that …
Facebook has shut down two accounts linked to Vancouver’s civic election, declaring the accounts violate its policies and that the company has placed a priority on preventing election interference.
Facebook took down one account that was promoting mayoral candidate Hector Bremner, under the name Vancouverites for Affordable Housing. Another account disparaging the Non-Partisan Association (NPA) candidate with the page name Vancouver Deserves Better Than Ken Sim was also taken down.
Here are just two of the unsavoury ads the groups have been running …
Later in the day, Press Progress published a story with the heading, “Elections BC is Investigating a Right-Wing Group Running Anonymous Ads Attacking Electoral Reform“, with the sub-headline “Why is an unregistered group with links to a right-wing Vancouver political party running ads attacking electoral reform?”
One would think that we’re living in Trump’s America when social media ads like the ones above — which have flooded Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media feeds for the past week, before being taken down today — are considered necessary and par for the course by extremist right-wing groups bent on importing the Alex Jones and Rush Limbaugh style of ugly, untoward, fear-mongering, unsubstantiated and untrue style of take down ads that are the purview, in Canada, of Ezra Lavant’s Rebel Media Group.
Ms. Bula quotes NPA campaign strategist Mike Witherly, as follows …
“This is honestly just the nastiest election cycle ever. The party complained about both of the Facebook pages that were ultimately taken down. I think people are getting ideas as they see the investigation into Russian interference [in the American elections]. It’s giving people a sense of its effectiveness and prompting people to try it.
Press Progress takes the Facebook group, the Kitsilano-based right-wing group Wake Up Vancouver, run by Mary Lavin and Fiona Brodie, to task. Formerly called Concerned Kitsilano Residents, the two changed the name of their fearmongering group to Wake Up Vancouver in November 2016.
Meanwhile, as we’ve written previously, both the right and the left spent a good portion of the summer engaging in a vicious and unwarranted take down campaign of OneCity Vancouver City Council candidate, Brandon Yan, the latest salvo a civil claim that has been filed before the B.C. Supreme Court by anti-SOGI 123 activists and 2018 Coalition Vancouver School Board candidates, Ken Denike and Sophia Woo.
Perhaps, in aide of creating a fairer 2018 Vancouver civic election, those hate-mongering reactionaries on the right side of the political spectrum might consider adopting the humanist perspective of OneCity Vancouver Board member Anna Chudnovksy’s elementary school-age students …
