Liberals defend editing Erin O’Toole video that ran afoul of Twitter

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/08/2021 (1476 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — The sophisticated online campaigns designed by political parties for this federal election have run up against a legacy of the U.S. presidential election:

It’s not just voters watching the posts — it’s the social media companies, too.

Last year, social media giant Twitter debuted new monitoring tools for the U.S. presidential election in response to what many saw as rampant misinformation flowing unchecked from the account of president Donald Trump.

The company flagged numerous Trump tweets as containing false, misleading or disputed information before eventually kicking him off the platform altogether.

As of Monday, all of Canada’s federal leaders are still on Twitter.

But their social media accounts are now under heightened scrutiny after the company used the same policy deployed in the U.S. to mark a post shared by the Liberals as containing “manipulated content.”

Early Sunday, the Liberals posted a video on Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland’s Twitter account of Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole talking about health care.

The tweet was quickly shared by many other Liberals, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The video showed an edited version of O’Toole’s answer to a question about whether he’d allow provinces to experiment with private health care within the universal access model.

He responded with an emphatic yes, and went on to say, “We can’t just have one old model that is increasingly becoming inefficient, and we have to find public-private synergies …”

In the unedited version of the video, O’Toole ends that sentence by saying, “ … and make sure universal access remains paramount.”

But the Liberals cut the end of that sentence off.

In their edited version, O’Toole goes on to say, “ … and that capital will come in to drive efficiencies. I have run on this for several years now.”

The Liberal post also included a link to the entire interview, but the Conservatives moved fast to condemn the edit, slamming the Liberals for what they called a deliberate distortion of what O’Toole actually said.

Late Sunday, Twitter marked the original tweets containing the video as “manipulated media,” a tag placed on posts determined to contain content that has been edited to distort its meaning.

“The tweets in question have both been labelled in line with our global synthetic and manipulated policy,” Twitter Canada said in a statement.

If a post is so labelled, it has limited visibility in searches, replies and on timelines, and won’t be recommended by Twitter.

While earlier this month Twitter debuted a feature specifically allowing posts to be flagged for election-related misinformation, that feature has not actually been switched on for Canadian users.

Twitter Canada said the rollout of those specific tools is a gradual process, but tweets can still be reported to the company and those concerns will be reviewed.

Trudeau brushed off questions about Twitter’s move Monday, saying his campaign stands by its interpretation of O’Toole’s remarks as the Tory leader turning his back on the public system.

“I encourage all Canadians to take a look to see what Erin O’Toole has to say about what he sees on the future of health care,” he said.

The Conservatives have asked the commissioner of Canada Elections to investigate the Liberal tweet on the grounds that it could be in violation of elections law prohibiting the distribution of misleading materials.

O’Toole said Canadians deserve better.

Trudeau’s Liberals, he said, are “dividing and misleading Canadians on a daily basis, and with their social media yesterday, they’re importing American-style misleading politics.”

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh called the tweet “troubling,” and lamented the spread of misinformation online.

“It is really disconcerting, though, that the current party in power is engaging in exactly what we need to be ending,” he said.

While social media strategy is a baked-in part of political campaigns, all three major parties have sharpened their efforts in 2021, given the pandemic is forcing a higher reliance on virtual electioneering.

The Tories, who are using digital strategy firms with winning track records for conservative campaigns elsewhere in the world, have also already run afoul of Twitter rules.

A spoof video they posted just before the start of the campaign was removed after it was flagged as being in violation of copyright.

Ahead of the election, the Liberal party trumpeted its adoption of Greenfly, an online content sharing platform that was used to great success by the U.S. Democrats during the 2020 campaign.

It’s an app that allows social media content generated by Liberal headquarters to be shared by any candidate, campaign staff worker or volunteer across multiple platforms simultaneously.

Greenfly was used by the Liberals to blast out the O’Toole video, which also appeared on Facebook.

When asked why it’s not flagged there, Facebook pointed to a 2019 speech by Nick Clegg, its vice-president of global affairs and communications, explaining the company’s approach to political information.

The company does use third-party fact checkers to reduce the spread of false news or manipulated photos or videos, Clegg said at the time.

“We don’t believe, however, that it’s an appropriate role for us to referee political debates and prevent a politician’s speech from reaching its audience and being subject to public debate and scrutiny,” he said.

“That’s why Facebook exempts politicians from our third-party fact-checking program.”

Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms have signed on to a joint declaration with the Canadian government that recognizes their role in driving debate during elections but also the risk that materials shared on their platforms could undermine democracy.

Facebook has a seven-point plan it says it will use during the Canadian campaign that will increase civic engagement and keep politicians — and voters — safe from bad actors seeking to manipulate the platform.

One of the changes it has put in place for this campaign is reducing the amount of political content people see.

Winnipeg Free Press | Newsletter

Election Extra

During Elections

Get campaign news, insight, analysis and commentary delivered to your inbox during civic, provincial and federal elections.

Sign up for Election Extra

Sign Up

I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

That was an idea the company decided to pursue earlier this year as it struggled with the role its platform played in driving people to a pro-Trump rally which led to a deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol.

Canada was one of the first markets to test the new feature after it rolled out in February.

“It’s important to note that we’re not removing political content from Facebook altogether,” the policy for the Canadian election says.

“Our goal is to preserve the ability for people to find and interact with political content on Facebook, while respecting each person’s appetite for it at the top of their newsfeed.”

Stephanie Levitz is an Ottawa-based reporter covering federal politics for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @StephanieLevitz