Should the Government of Canada continue to use the bird site to share important official information?

Senator Paula Simons

Should the Government of Canada continue to use the bird site to share important official information? That was a question many of you asked me. So today, during Senate question period, I asked your question of Senator Marc Gold, the government representative in the Senate. Here's our exchange. What do you think? https://youtu.be/y1D7PlvSFTE?si=vKUvGdP_CRjfO_V9 #SenateofCanada #Xodus, #X #cdnpoli #GovernmentofCanada #Canada #Twitter #Mastodon

Amelia Bellamy-Royds :progress:

@Paulatics For these questions to the government representative in the Senate, do you usually give advance notice of your question so that he can ask around to try to find information for you? There wasn't much substance to the answer you received, but I don't think any could have been expected if it was off-the-cuff.

Either way, thank you for bringing up the matter. Hopefully there will be some follow-up.

Senator Paula Simons

@AmeliasBrain Often, though not always, I will share questions in advance, especially when they are complicated, or if I want a really specific answer. But today, they had a QP slot come open at the last minute, and I jumped on it. More than anything, I wanted to get my concern on the record - and to get people in government thinking about this problem in concrete terms.

Eileen Kinley

@Paulatics Your point was well made. I accept that he doesn't have much control in the matter. I'm not convinced he will actually pursue the issue strongly.

Senator Paula Simons

@EileenOttawa We live in hope - and I will keep pressing the point!

Jean-Francois Mezei

@Paulatics La Presse has an article asking if Government should continue on X. Doesn't mention you , mentions "experts".

https://www.lapresse.ca/affaires/techno/2024-11-20/vie-numerique/les-politiciens-canadiens-invites-a-quitter-x.php?mfid=NjQxOGVhOGY5Njg0M2EyOWI5N2Y5MDJkMWRjM2JlODI%3D

Andrew Hunter

@Paulatics e-4769 was presented to the House and the governments response drips with indifference to the concept of communications sovereignty.

https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-4769

Catelli

@Paulatics I know you couldn't state it this way, but I wish I could

"Many people call X the Nazi Bar, and by staying on X, that means users of X are endorsing Nazis, or fascism in general. Does the government of Canada understand that it is viewed as a willful enabler of the Nazi Bar? That it is endorsing fascism?"

But Kudos for your question and the follow-up.

William B Peckham

@Paulatics I think it's remarkably telling that you provide a YouTube link instead of a peer tube link.

sleepy62

@Paulatics Thanks for asking the question. Its a start.

IMO under no circumstances should any public agency be using a platform that requires a subscription for official communication. Especially not one that is algorithmically manipulated.

#cdnpoli

Geoff Wozniak

@Paulatics I really appreciate you raising these points.

Senator Paula Simons

@wbpeckham Ok, I’ll bite. What is peer tube?

Gordon J Holtslander

@Paulatics SK politicians were critiszied by its own privacy commisioner: ""Questions about security and records management arise if and when government leaders or employees use non-government email accounts to do government-related activities," Kruzeniski writes." on using communication services that escape oversight. Twitter is no different than a private email service. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/saskatchewan-privacy-commissioner-1.4156815

Senator Paula Simons

@GeoffWozniak Thank you. We all got ourselves in trouble by naively treating Twitter and Facebook like public utilities. A big mistake.

Senator Paula Simons

@sleepy62 Agreed.

Senator Paula Simons

This, btw, is a column I wrote in late 2022, right after I quit Twitter - and joined Mastodon. Perhaps even more relevant now. https://albertaviews.ca/goodbye-to-twitter/ #X #Xodus #Twitter #Alberta #Edmonton #yeg

Action Jay 🐾 :CApride:

@Paulatics awesome work. I'd love to see a collection of Canadian run federated sites providing local/niche coverage with more resistance to outside tampering like we've been seeing

Lorbs

@Paulatics

Good question.

Non answer.

@Paulatics
Thank you for that, please do follow up. I'd also like the Senate to consider hosting a Mastodon instance (perhaps with the help of a special webmeister we both appreciate) to demonstrate to the government how it too can reach Canadians and still be under full control of the govt instead vany corporate control. The EU has realized this...

Lynn D

@Paulatics thank you for raising this issue Senator.