Officials should not block people on social media: professor
People who use social media to interact with elected officials and public services have begun witnessing a roadblock.
Recently, the founder of a community project in Montreal was puzzled when she realized she couldn't interact with the mayor on Instagram.
“I went to tag Valérie Plante in something on our Meals for Milton-parc Instagram and I wasn't able to tag her, so I thought that was interesting,” said Sophie Hart, who founded Meals for Milton-parc (M4MP) in the fall to respond to a need for support in the area's unhoused community.
“So then I checked on my personal account, and there she was,” Hart said.
Hart's group isn't alone in being blocked by an elected official recently. Just this week, dozens were blocked on Twitter by Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-françois Blanchet for criticizing some of his comments — a move experts called a limit on freedom of speech.
“It's normal that people use social media to criticize politicians, criticize policy-makers. It's expected,” said Pierre Trudel, a Université de Montréal law professor. “I think that a politician who chooses to use Twitter or any social network to exercise their political role, their function, well, they cannot arbitrarily decide to block a citizen just because the citizen disagrees with them.”
Hart uses social media to document M4MP'S work so people can see where their donations are going, but also to show elected officials how their decisions affect people.
Recent posts show care packages for the unhoused community, donations for people with COVID -19 at the old Royal Victoria Hospital (where Hart works as an intervention worker) and articles featuring updates on the homeless crisis in Montreal.
On Dec. 10, M4MP shared a photo of a tent being lifted into a garbage truck at the city-ordered evacuation of the Notre-dame encampment in the east end.
“That got over 2,000 shares, and a lot of people were tagging Valérie Plante in the comment section as an accountability to show her what her administration was doing to the unhoused population,” Hart said.
She later got a call from Plante's office on her personal number, which she said isn't associated with M4MP.
“(A representative) tried to say that I was sharing false information and she tried to provide her point (of view regarding) the dismantling of the camp,” Hart said.
The photo was posted alongside a caption written by a Facebook user that said other camps in the city were also being dismantled, and that personal belongings were being thrown in the trash or held for months.
“As part of the evacuation of Notre-dame encampment, they conveyed false information,” said Geneviève Jutras, a spokesperson for Plante, in an email to the Montreal Gazette. “One of our colleagues called them to explain the situation, but they continued, and we blocked them from the mayor's Instagram account because they did not follow the rules of respect and dissemination of truthful information.”
The mayor's office didn't respond to the Montreal Gazette's request for clarification on what information was inaccurate or which rules they were referring to.
But according to Trudel, unless a person is making abusive comments, elected officials should not be blocking people on social media.
That stands even if the public official claims false information is being shared, Trudel said, in part because what one person considers false isn't necessarily so.
“What in my opinion justifies blocking someone is not only falsehood, but that there is actual abusive behaviour,” he said. “Falsehood accompanied by remarks that are contemptuous, or racist, or discriminatory.
“The nuance is not easy to detect, but if we simply say, as soon as something is false in our opinion that that becomes a reason to block someone, it means that ultimately any person who has different political views … could legitimately be blocked.”
It would have made more sense for Plante or someone from her team to have shared their version of the facts on the M4MP post, Trudel said.
“That allows the public to get an idea. In the end, we must always think of the public as well,” he said. “The public can choose or draw their own conclusions.”
Trudel said the same goes for public services like the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal.
Last weekend, Instagram users noticed comments were disappearing from the SPVM'S page. The comments — which weren't relevant to the post — asked what the point is in ticketing homeless people, after reports surfaced that one had been ticketed for breaking curfew.
In an email to the Montreal Gazette, the SPVM said moderators may delete comments that are off-topic, as explained in their online etiquette guidelines.
“I think it's the same thing,” Trudel said. “The right to criticize public authorities or public services is a right that is guaranteed in Canada. The limit of that right, of course, is abusive language.”