Feds Get Facebook to Pull ‘False’ Trudeau Info, Ignores WeChat for O’Toole

During the 2019 federal election campaign, Facebook removed a “false and inflammatory” story about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after a request from the country’s top civil servant, while similar actions were not taken when it came to misinformation about Conservative leaders on WeChat in the subsequent 2021 election.

This contrast in approaches to handling misinformation was highlighted during a public inquiry on Friday into foreign election interference, reports the Globe and Mail.

The allegedly falsely story on Facebook claimed Trudeau had an affair with a student at a school he was teaching at in 2000, and was published by the Buffalo Chronicle. Concerned about its potential to “risk threatening the integrity of the election,” officials from the Privy Council Office, led by Allan Sutherland, sought its removal. Facebook complied, eliminating the story from the social network.

But during the 2021 federal election, misleading stories targeting Conservative leader Erin O’Toole and MP Kenny Chiu circulated on China’s WeChat. These included claims that O’Toole wanted to cut diplomatic ties and that the Conservative platform scared Chinese Canadians. Despite these issues being flagged to officials, no request was made to WeChat to remove the misleading content.

“It was written in Mandarin meant that the content would only reach the Chinese diaspora,” explained Sutherland to the inquiry.

“In addition, the Buffalo Chronicle article presented false and inflammatory information directly targeting the Prime Minister’s character, whereas the WeChat postings discussed substantive policy issues, albeit also in an inflammatory manner,” Sutherland explained.

The Trudeau story on Facebook was “highly inflammatory and was seen that it might go viral and become a national event,” Sutherland explained during the inquiry. “I was simply observing that in the case of WeChat, the ability to go viral on a national scale is different.”

“I do not want to leave you with the impression that it was treated with any less seriousness. I am only observing that they had different qualities,” said Sutherland.

The Globe and Mail revealed in May 2023 that Conservative MP Michael Chong was targeted by China in the 2021 election, while CSIS informed O’Toole and NDP MP Jenny Kwan they were also under the influence of similar actions by the CCP.