A hostage video, a love fest, and seven excruciating minutes

The Colossally Irrational Report - Groundhog says six more weeks of this nonsense (at least) - February 4, 2024

My Scottish/Irish ancestors arrived on the east coast of so-called “Canada” in the late 1700’s or early 1800’s and were part of several waves of genocidal colonization of the Indigenous people who were already here. I like to start every new post by explaining my family’s history and keeping this foremost in my mind (and my writing) at all times. I know I have benefited as a result of colonization, and I find the history deeply troubling. It is what motivates me to understand the true history and advocate for real reconciliation. As a child in the 1970’s, I moved west with my family and am grateful to be writing this newsletter in Moh’kinsstis, and the traditional Treaty 7 territory of the Blackfoot confederacy: Siksika, Kainai, Piikani, as well as the Îyâxe Nakoda and Tsuut’ina nations. This territory is also home to the Métis Nation of Alberta, Region 3 within the historical Northwest Métis homeland. I recognize that the land I now work and live on was stolen from these nations (truth) and I support giving the land back as an act of reconciliation.

I probably should not write anything about the video released by Danielle Smith this past week declaring her intentions to push forward with a new transgender policy.

I probably should wait until I’m not actually seething and let my emotions settle down into more of a slow boil. But no, here I am at my desk.

When I sat down to write this on Saturday, I first went to YouTube to watch the video.

For her part, Smith comes across as a modern-day Patty Hearst, reading a script written by her hostage-takers (Take Back Alberta), and hopelessly in love with her captors. She’ll do anything for them. And for their votes.

In seven excruciating minutes, Smith spews disinformation about what is already legal (no, kids aren’t making medical decisions without their parents), misrepresents the risks of hormone blockers (these are not permanent), and implies that being transgender is a choice that can and should be put off until an arbitrary date (transgender kids are making themselves known at an early age, the same as other genders). None of her statements are supported by scientific evidence.

Although the video is produced with stock images of flawless teens smiling, a softly-focused, expertly-coiffed Smith, and gentle guitar strings being plucked in the background, the whole thing just stinks. All the way through.

No transgender kid believes Smith is doing this because she “loves and supports them.” And neither do their parents either, because she is talking about ripping away their ability to do what is medically-recommended and best for their children. 

A sign at the protest in Calgary, Saturday, Feb. 3 at City Hall.

Smith wants to deny them their rights as parents and remove access to medical treatment that all other kids will continue to be able to access. It’s discrimination based on sex and/or sexual orientation, which are both protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights. The success of a legal challenge is almost guaranteed. Use of the archaic Notwithstanding Clause would likely be required.

After watching the video, I made the mistake, as many have unwisely before me, of looking at the comments. It wasn’t long before I had disappeared down the rabbit hole and ended up on a Reddit thread discussing it.

What I noticed when looking at the YouTube comments was that there were quite a lot of comments. Over 800 and all seemed to have been posted in a very short time frame. It was like a huge fan club hive had descended onto Smith’s YouTube channel three days ago and left behind hundreds of fawning comments that all sounded very similar. 

Also, most of the comments were short and pretty vacuous - “Thank you Premier Smith, you are the leader we need at this time,” or “Well done Premier. Finally, someone with a thoughtful and reasoned policy on this subject.” The YouTube comments were awash in flattery for Smith, almost without exception. 

Very few contained the language you would see from the rabid anti-2SLGBTQIA swarm that usually shows up for these conversations. They were there, but in small numbers and had been buried in a pile of stilted compliments for the premier. Several suggested she run for Prime Minister. 

It was (and still is) a Danielle Smith lovefest

As I sifted through hundreds of comments and could not find a single comment with an opposing view of the policy, it seemed mighty suspicious. Given the flood of outrage, protests and threats of legal action that seemed to be everywhere else, is it possible there is this overwhelming support out there that is underestimated? 

Then, I saw one comment from a person who had posted a complaint about having two previous comments removed. They said they were concerned about the mental health impacts of the policy and couldn’t understand why their comments had been removed. That got me thinking. 

Could they be removing ALL comments opposed to the policy? This is where Reddit helped me out. I went to the Alberta subreddit and posted my observation and a link to the video. 

Screen capture taken just as the moderators were locking down comments on th post.

People began pointing out that almost all the usernames were similar. As one Reddit user explained, it was the default user name format given to accounts when the requested name is not available and a four-digit extension is auto-generated. 

Many of the accounts had been created in the last few years - 2021 to 2023 - just around the time of Smith’s rise in the party from outsider (the “bonkers” campaign is what I called it at the time) to eventually winning the leadership and the general election in 2022.

What’s also interesting is that the number of likes on the transgender video has not changed in the last 24 hours. And there have been very few new posts from supporters, I’d say less than 20. Some of those were almost certainly as a result of the discussion on Reddit, which had a very high engagement rate and attracted a lot of people on both sides of the debate before the moderators locked down the comments.

By the way, I was happy to see the comments locked as some of the comments were starting to get graphic and offensive. It was time to shut it down and move on.

Smith has one thing in common with her arch enemy

It wasn’t long before people started dropping in their own comments on the YouTube video. An Instagram post also helped to spread the word. Those opposed to the policy started posting their comments, and as of this writing, they are still visible. 

I’ve seen one report of a reply to a comment being removed. The reply doesn’t seem to violate any community standards that I’ve seen in most moderation policies. So, there is that.

Since YouTube now hides the number of dislikes, you have to download a special extension for your browser to see the number of dislikes on any video. When I checked the dislikes, I saw around 960 dislikes (compared to the 3,500 likes). That’s a lot of dislikes with very few comments to match.

Soon, people did start to pop into the chat with stories of comments being removed from Smith’s YouTube channel in other instances.

Smith has been known for blocking users across multiple social media platforms, and removing comments regularly. Many Albertans report they have been blocked simply for making policy arguments and providing valid criticism. 

Canada’s Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault was ordered by the federal court this past September to unblock Ezra Levant on X. While Service Canada claimed Guilbeault’s account wasn’t an official Government of Canada account, the court disagreed. 

It ordered Guilbeault to unblock Levant’s account and pay his legal fees. 

James Demers making his awesome “Albertans get shit done” speech in Calgary on Feb. 3.

In the United States, a decision is pending from the Supreme Court in two cases of public officials censoring social media comments simply because they disagreed with their views. The pivotal legal question is NOT whether government officials have a right to block valid criticism. They don’t. 

The question is whether a government official’s social media page is private or not. If not private, and largely used for government purposes, then it will be subject to First Amendment rules around viewpoint discrimination.

Here in Alberta, Smith maintains a separate YouTube channel in her own name. This latest video is posted to that channel and was hyperlinked on the Government of Alberta news release posted on the alberta.ca website. 

Some have defended Smith saying the YouTube is her personal/private account. Based on the decision in the Levant case, it doesn’t seem likely that Smith’s account can be considered private by any stretch of the imagination. 

Even more concerning though, is the effort across social media channels by supporters of Smith’s proposed transgender policy to position it as having the widespread support of Canadians. They claim there is polling, but the polls they refer to relate more to support for the school policies around pronoun permission. 

There is no recent polling on the radical proposals in this video, the most extreme in Canada. But the talking points are repeated in what seems like a coordinated campaign (by Take Back Alberta perhaps?). 

A YouTube video comment section carefully curated to show support for Smith’s decision seemed designed to reassure her, probably more than convince any of us. This is how politicians are manipulated by their closest advisors into believing that what they are doing is what the people want. 

This is a big problem

According to Joan Donovan, PhD, founder of the Critical Internet Studies Institute, “A public problem as big as misinformation-at-scale requires a whole-of-society solution.”

Dr. Donovan is the researcher fired from her job at Harvard University after her research was critical of Facebook, a $500 million donor to the university.

She is now at Boston University and is convening a collaborative effort in the US to build web applications for people to find information about politicians’ use of social media and the web. 

For those looking at media manipulation and disinformation, the Internet Observatory Consortium will “track posts and interactions overtime, which will aid in the identification of coordinated networked incitement, hate, and harassment by repeat offenders.”

“It’s no longer enough to point out what is wrong with technology and hope the message reaches key stakeholders, we must also build capacity across sectors- from journalism, civil society, academia, technology, to policy making- so that we can develop institutional resilience and bring about the web we deserve.***”
Joan Donovan, PhD

A lovely sign from the Pride parade in Calgary this past summer.

**For further listening on this subject, I highly recommend this panel discussion that aired recently on CBC Ideas.