Facebook removed false article about Trudeau during 2019 election, inquiry hears
One of Canada's top civil servants asked that a false article about Prime Minis‐ ter Justin Trudeau be re‐ moved from Facebook dur‐ ing the 2019 election, ac‐ cording to Friday testimony and documents tabled at the public inquiry into for‐ eign interference.
The article in question was published by the Buffalo Chronicle. It contained uncor‐ roborated claims involving Trudeau and was spreading online during the 2019 elec‐ tion campaign.
The Buffalo Chronicle website, which covers local news in New York State, has been accused of publishing fake or misleading stories about Canada during and af‐ ter the 2019 election.
The allegations in the arti‐ cle were being discussed at the very top levels of Canadi‐ an government, documents tabled with the inquiry show.
Notes from an interview with Privy Council Office em‐ ployee Allen Sutherland, tabled with the inquiry, say he claimed Facebook brought the article to his at‐ tention.
"The content might have gained significant attention were it amplified, and there‐ fore risked threatening the integrity of the election," said the notes from Sutherland's interview with a lawyer acting for the the Foreign Interfer‐ ence Commission, which is conducting the inquiry.
"At the direction of thenClerk of the Privy Council Ian Shugart, Mr. Sutherland asked Facebook to remove the article. Facebook com‐ plied."
According to the lawyer's notes, Sutherland said the government did not make this information public be‐ cause the online "informa‐ tion ecosystem" had de‐ bunked the false report.
Sutherland said govern‐ ment officials asked whether requesting the removal of the article merited a public announcement but decided that doing so could end up amplifying misinformation.
Further testimony on Monday described what hap‐ pened slightly differently.
Members of the fivemember panel set up to warn the public in the event of foreign interference told the commission that Face‐ book, along with other social media giants, signed an un‐ dertaking to remove any mis‐ leading or false information leading up to the election. They said Facebook didn't re‐ move the article at the re‐ quest of PCO but was follow‐ ing through on its obliga‐ tions.
WeChat misinformation handled differently
A lawyer representing Con‐ servative MP Michael Chong before the inquiry noted the differences between the gov‐ ernment's handling of the Buffalo Chronicle article and its approach to multiple false articles about Erin O'Toole's Conservative Party circulating on the social media platform WeChat during the 2021 elec‐ tion.
Documents show Suther‐ land believed the two in‐ stances were separate: the WeChat articles were in Man‐ darin, meaning the content likely would only reach Chi‐ nese readers.
As well, Sutherland said the Buffalo Chronicle article presented inflammatory in‐ formation directly targeting the prime minister's char‐ acter, while the WeChat post‐
ings were about policy issues - even though they contained falsehoods.
"There was less concern about misinformation tar‐ geted at the Chinese diaspo‐ ra than the English speaking public?" asked lawyer Gib Van Ert.
"I talked about the Buffalo
Chronicle article as being something that was highly in‐ flammatory and was seen that it might go viral and be‐ come a national event," said Sutherland.
Conservative Party repre‐ sentatives at the inquiry, in‐ cluding former leader O'‐ Toole, have said they believe Chinese foreign interference may have cost their party up to nine seats in the 2021 election in ridings with large Chinese diaspora communi‐ ties in British Columbia and Toronto.
While some of the articles highlighted in 2021 by CSIS and other monitoring bodies were about O'Toole's promises on China, others were more personal in nature. One article regarding former CPC member Kenny Chiu's proposed private members' bill calling for a foreign influence registry act calls Chiu "anti-Chinese."
Another said O'Toole would "ban WeChat, if elected," described him as the "Canadian version of Trump" and called him "sig‐ nificantly more radical and tougher on China" than his predecessor Andrew Scheer.
Sutherland said officials must be cautious about set‐ ting the threshold for re‐ sponding to false reports during an election because setting it too low could play into the objectives of adver‐ saries trying to sow doubt about Canadian democracy.