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Montreal mayor criticized for blocking social media comments (www.nationalobserver.com)
submitted 1 month ago by NightOwl@lemmy.ca to c/canada@lemmy.ca
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But Salem said elected officials have an obligation to engage with their constituents. He said Plante could deal with online harassment by blocking individual accounts or reporting them to the police. "When we decide to be public figures, that goes with the position," he said. "When we want to be representative of the population, we have to be representative of the whole population."

Anaïs Bussières McNicoll, director of the fundamental freedoms program at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, said a "blanket prohibition on comment" is an unreasonable limitation of people's freedom of expression. Instead, she said, elected officials should evaluate inappropriate comments on a case-by-case basis.

"I would say that elected officials with significant resources shouldn't have their cake and eat it too," she said. "In that if they choose to have access to and to use social media platforms in the context of their public work, they should also accept that their constituents might want to comment on their work on that very public platform."

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[-] pedz@lemmy.ca 27 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

When I saw the title through my news feed, I knew exactly what it was about.

And it's totally ridiculous and unrealistic to expect her to allow every right wing asshole on X formally known as Twitter to send her heinous messages and ad hominem. She should just quit that cesspool.

I went there for a while and every fucking post that I tried to make, or follow, within my "community" and followers, ended up being flooded by hateful messages, the worst ones being from paying accounts and highlighted by Twitter itself. I really liked the small community of people that were progressives and pro-cycling on Twitter, for Montreal. But every time they comment or if you dare reply something nice, you or them will get flooded by loads of insulting, hateful, shitty replies. I gave up. It's untenable.

If you spend just a few minutes through her posts and their replies, you can see exactly why some of them are being blocked. The people criticizing her are unrealistic. They are not receiving personal threats and insults as "messages from their constituents".

Again, I think she should just quit the cesspool that is X formally known as Twitter. There is nothing to gain there.

[-] Nogami@lemmy.world 13 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

If you call the mayors office on the phone does every crazy that calls get put right through? Of course not.

They need to hire a social media manger to filter the crazy. The mayor is under no obligation to read their insane ravings.

I dumped twitter/x a couple of years ago. No negative impacts at all. Just not hearing from “those types” anymore.

Edit: and anyone that can’t behave can have their comments removed. We don’t need online amplification for the worst kinds of people.

[-] pedz@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 month ago

And I'm sure they already have a team filtering through that crap. Poor them.

That reminds me that the mayor of Paris decided to just quit that shit hole last year.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/27/paris-mayor-anne-hidalgo-quits-x-calling-social-media-site-a-gigantic-global-sewer

It also reminds me that lots of media sites won't allow comments on their YouTube videos or on some of their articles because they can predict exactly the kind of BS they are going to get, and nobody from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association is saying that it's unreasonable and limiting people's freedom of expression.

They can still reach the mayor's office through official channels. They can write open letters in the media. They have multiple other ways to make their shitty opinions heard. X formally known as Twitter is not fundamental to freedom of expression.

[-] cyborganism@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 month ago

You're absolutely right. I don't know why conservatives are so obsessed with her. Even in Québec city, their radio hosts and conservative talking heads are talking more about her than their own mayor. It's crazy.

[-] MapleEngineer@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

"Free speech" is the right wing code word for hate speech.

[-] isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

No such thing as free speech in Canada, instead we have Freedom of Expression, which is similar but (in theory) doesn't allow you to say hateful things.

[-] MapleEngineer@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

That's a bit of hair splitting and likely largely based on right wing grievance talking points. "Expression" covers speech and other forms of message delivery and is a very Canadian way to say the same thing.

[-] isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago

Fair enough

this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2024
27 points (96.6% liked)

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