-->
@ILikePie5
The Violent crackdown on #FreedomConvoy2022 has nothing to do with freedom of speech and human rights. How coercion could be related to liberty & freedom of choice?
Truckers fight Facism.
Posts
Total:
280
-->
@Greyparrot
Does Canada have a 2nd Amendment?
-->
@oromagi
Yep.
Who's paying these fascist truckers to sit around honking all day.
Seemingly, gone are the days when truckers needed to truck for a living.
For goodness sake, get the good old Mounties to give them Soviet truckers a good biffing.
Though I blame the media and celebrity culture.
Stick a camera in their faces, make Truckers media sensations, and Bob's your Uncle, instant superheroes, fighting against tyranny and social injustice.
Cheap entertainment,
Big rewards.
And what are they fighting for?
I've forgotten.
Doesn't matter anyway,
Celebrity superhero truckers is all that matters.
-->
@ILikePie5
Does Canada have a 2nd Amendment?
All an old lady can do is have her walker smashed by a horse.
-->
@zedvictor4
Cheap entertainment,
I love watching the mounted police destroy old women. It's the next best thing to snuff videos.
Seemingly, gone are the days when truckers needed to truck for a living.
Put your slaves back in the field while I get you an ice cold lemonade.
-->
@zedvictor4
Here is a nice video with hard core leftists condemning the Tyranny.
-->
@Greyparrot
Always sensible to stay out of the way of horses.
And so, truckers don't need to truck these days.
As I said, paid too much by the media to perform stunts on TV.
And if you ever do live under a tyrannical regime, you will have real reason for concern.
-->
@oromagi
you caught me
i'm a russian agent
-->
@zedvictor4
-->@oromagiYep.Who's paying these fascist truckers to sit around honking all day.
Seemingly, gone are the days when truckers needed to truck for a living.
As I've said characterizing the protestors as truckers would be highly inaccurate. I mean, I'm sure there were some actual truckers in the group but the facts strongly suggest that they were at most a minor element.
- No professional truckers in leadership
- At peak, 400 trucks were estimated as participating in a crowd of 4,000 protestors.
- So if every truck represented one trucker- 10% representation
- Ottawa police report they were issuing many, many tickets to people driving trucks without a class A license.
- Let's agree that if you don't have a Class A license, you are not a trucker
- There are multiple reports of truck theft or employees taking a company's truck without authorization.
- Strong evidence that not even all the people driving trucks were professional truckers
- February was a busy month for actual professional truckers who were obligated to drive long extra distances and wait in long lines because of bridges and on-ramps and off-ramps closed down by protestors.
- It may be fairly said the Canadian Truckers as a profession despise and denounce the fascists pretending to represent them
And what are they fighting for?
$9 million in bitcoin.
As U.S. 'TRUCKER CONVOY' PICKS up MOMENTUM, FOREIGN MEDDLING ADDS to FRAY
Facebook said Friday it removed trucker and convoy groups run by overseas actors. Many anti-vaccine and conspiracy-driven groups have moved to embrace convoy organizing.
NBC News- Ben Collins
Researchers at Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy first noted that large pro-Trump groups had been changing their names to go with convoy-related themes earlier this week. Grid News reported on Friday that one major trucker convoy Facebook group was being run by a Bangladesh content farm.
Many of the groups have changed names multiple times, going from those that tap hot-button political issues such as support for former President Donald Trump or opposition to vaccine mandates, to names with keywords like “trucker,” “freedom” and “convoy.” Facebook allows groups on its platforms to change names but tracks the changes in each page’s “about” section.
The motivations of the people behind the content mills are not clear, but Joan Donovan, director of the Shorenstein Center, said the pattern fits existing efforts to make money off U.S. political divisions.
“In some ways, it’s normal political activity,” Donovan said. “In other ways, we have to look at how some of the engagement online is fake but can be a way to mobilize more people.”
“When we see really effective disinformation campaigns, it’s when the financial and political motives align,” she added.
The groups frequently directed users away from Facebook toward websites that sold pro-Trump and anti-vaccine merchandise, a spokesperson for Meta, the parent company of Facebook, said. The spokesperson noted that the majority of the content posted in these groups came from real accounts and that the company has removed the groups tied to foreign content mills.
“Voicing opposition to government mandates is not against Meta’s policies,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “However, we have removed multiple groups and Pages for repeatedly violating our policies prohibiting QAnon content and those run by spammers in different countries around the world. We continue to monitor the situation and take action.”
The details of foreign interference come as anti-vaccine protesters, pro-Trump groups and QAnon supporters have shifted their full attention to making trucker convoys a reality on American roads. Anti-vaccine protesters, some of whom are truckers, have clogged roads in Ottawa for more than a week, demanding the Canadian government remove mask and vaccine mandates.
Major websites and social media accounts behind the anti-vaccine mandate protest that marched on Washington last month are rebranding as “trucker convoys,” part of a widespread effort to bring versions of Ottawa’s anti-vaccine road closures to American cities.
The official website for the “Defeat the Mandates” event has changed its homepage and is now advertising a trucker convoy in Southern California in March.
“There’s a misconception that every participant in these chats is a trucker, but that’s not true at all. It’s really anybody who’s been a part of these movements who’ve been waiting for an excuse to do something — QAnon, anti-vaccine, sovereign citizens,” said extremism researcher Sara Aniano, who recently published a report on QAnon’s growth after Jan. 6 for the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, a London-based nonprofit group. ”This feels like the culmination of everything that’s happened since Jan. 6th.”
Social media-based foreign interference in domestic politics first came into public view in the aftermath of the 2016 election after researchers found that Russia’s Internet Research Agency was conducting an elaborate influence campaign across American social media sites in an effort to support candidate Donald Trump. Since then, foreign social media interference has been tempered by efforts by major social media platforms to crack down, though various influence operations are still frequently identified.
Donovan, of Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center, said Vietnamese spammers specifically sell what they call “Nick” accounts at scale, which are credible-seeming Facebook accounts that moderate high-profile groups.
Once purchased, the accounts and the groups they run can be used for any purpose, from selling T-shirts to executing a foreign influence campaign.
Some content mills even offer to help if Facebook takes action against a certain page or group.
“The fake account trade is alive and well,” Donovan said. “Really, they act as something like customer service. Whether it’s a person or an organization, if you bought an account from a person, and they do get taken away, you can contact him and he will reimburse you with more accounts. It has some dark marketing aspects to it.”
The point of renaming larger groups is not only to retain and spam the already-existing community but to also appear higher in Facebook’s search and recommendations bar, which helps lend credibility to those curious about the movement.
Facebook said it would “continue to monitor the situation” for more inauthentic activity.
“We continue to see scammers latch onto any hot-button issue that draws people’s attention, including the ongoing protests,” the Meta spokesperson said. “Over the past week, we’ve removed groups and Pages run by spammers from different countries around the world who used abusive tactics to mislead people about the origin and popularity of their content to drive them to off-platform websites to monetize ad clicks.”
Aniano, who said she recently spent several days listening in on audio chats in convoy-related Telegram groups, said the communities largely consist of a mishmash of anti-vaccine groups and QAnon supporters.
Aniano said the groups, which have tens of thousands of subscribers, flow between logistical discussions about essentials to bring on a long-haul car trip and getting followers up to date on QAnon-based conspiracy theories.
FROM: The HACKED ACCOUNT and SUSPICIOUS DONATIONS BEHIND the CANADIAN TRUCKER PROTESTS
The jumble of misinformation, online fundraising groups and amplification from right-wing political figures suggests there’s more to these protests than meets the eye.
The jumble of misinformation, online fundraising groups and amplification from right-wing political figures suggests there’s more to these protests than meets the eye.
....But a close look at several “Freedom Convoy” groups and crowdfunding efforts online shows the involvement of anonymous actors, deep-pocketed non-Canadian donors and prominent U.S. right-wing political figures.
Some of the largest Facebook groups responsible for galvanizing support, both ideological and financial, appeared to have been administered through a stolen account, Grid has found.
The protests are not organized by Canadian trucking unions, the largest of which has come out against the protests. They also do not appear to reflect the values of most Canadians or most Canadian truckers: More than 80 percent of the Canadian public is vaccinated, including almost 90 percent of truckers, according to Canada’s minister of transport.
The speed at which the movement has raised millions of dollars raises red flags. A now-shuttered GoFundMe page raised nearly $8 million USD; a replacement crowdfunding campaign, on a self-described Christian platform called GiveSendGo, had raised more than $6 million by Tuesday morning, after just three days, with many donations of four and five figures.
The movement smacks of U.S. influence, said Gordon Pennycook, a behavioral scientist at the University of Regina who studies disinformation. “For sure, 100 percent, a large part of this is driven by cultural narratives that have emerged from the United States,” he said.
That doesn’t mean that many of the protesters on the ground aren’t true believers — whether about vaccine mandates, broader right-wing causes or even more extreme ideologies, including white nationalism.
“They’re driven by a very deep connection to a cause that they feel to be just,” Pennycook said. “They’re acting in accordance with their attitudes and values, and it just so happens to be the case that a lot of the beliefs that they hold probably aren’t rooted in good evidence. There’s a lot of conspiratorial thinking and distrust of good sources and reliable sources.”
A hacked Facebook account is behind some of the organizing
The entity behind some of the largest Facebook groups supporting the protests is an unknown person or persons who used the Facebook account of a Missouri woman. She says her account on the platform was hacked and stolen.
The account launched a handful of Facebook groups for the protest, all between Jan. 26 and 28, before the trucker convoy reached Ottawa. With a combined following of more than 340,000 members and more than 7,500 posts, the group names were variations on a theme: “Convoy to Ottawa 2022,” “Convoy for Freedom 2022,” “Freedom Convoy/Ottawa 2022 for Canada,” “Freedom Convoy 2022” and “2022 Official Freedom Convoy to Ottawa.”
Facebook groups are organized by administrators. Grid found that the only administrator account for these groups belonged to the Missouri woman. Reached briefly by phone on Monday, she said her account was hacked and she was not involved with the groups.
“Someone stole my identity on Facebook,” she said. “I don’t know how they [did] it.”
The woman, whom Grid is not naming because she is the victim of apparent identity theft, said her daughter set up a new account for her. A new Facebook account with the woman’s name appeared in October 2021 with the post: “New account. Last one got hacked.”
The groups were disabled Monday afternoon as Grid was reporting this story. Facebook did not immediately respond to questions about the hacked account. “We continue to see scammers latch onto any hot-button issue that draws people’s attention, including the ongoing protests,” Margarita Franklin, a spokeswoman for Facebook’s parent company, Meta, said in a statement to media outlets on Monday.
Even as Facebook groups have been taken down, the conversation is alive on Telegram, a United Arab Emirates-based social media platform that claims 500 million users worldwide. Channels cheering on the protests display thousands of subscribed followers, although it is possible to artificially inflate Telegram subscriber numbers. Inside these channels, users share photos and videos and trade misinformation about covid-19 and about the strength of their movement, such as the debunked claim that Canadian armed forces have pledged “allegiance to the people.”
Dear Mr. Zuckerberg:
I am concerned by reports that stolen and fake accounts on Facebook are behind largescale organizing and fundraising efforts related to a blockade in Canada that has impacted vital
U.S.-Canada border crossings and cross-border trade. These reports are particularly alarming
given Facebook’s history of amplifying toxic content, extremism, and disinformation, including
from Russia and other foreign actors. Although organizations representing American truckers
have condemned the blockade, similar convoys are reportedly being promoted by fake Facebook
accounts to occur in the United States.
According to recent reporting, a Missouri woman’s Facebook account was hacked and
stolen as far back as October 2021, and hackers then used the account to create of some of the
largest Facebook groups organizing the blockade in Ottawa, Canada. Between January 26 and
January 28, 2022, the account launched several Facebook groups that grew to include more than 340,000 combined members and has attracted online support from far-right groups. These
Facebook groups were used to raise millions of dollars in funds.
While it is not clear who is behind the reported hack of the Missouri woman’s account,
Facebook has confirmed that fake accounts run out of overseas content mills in countries such as
Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Romania have been behind content promoting the “Freedom
Convoy.” One Bangladeshi firm was responsible for attracting more than 170,000 members to
some of the largest “Freedom Convoy” organizing groups on Facebook.
Utilizing fake, stolen, or inauthentic accounts has become a common technique by those
promoting disinformation campaigns and social engineering efforts, particularly foreign entities.
Russia operated Facebook accounts and pages to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential
election, including using stolen identities of Americans. These Russian-operated accounts and
pages had their content shared hundreds of millions of times leading up to the election. Since
2016, Facebook has claimed to use a strategy called “remove, reduce, and inform” to manage
content that violates its community standards or raises other issues.
In response to recent concerns, Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has stated that it has
removed dozens of Facebook groups and pages related to the “Freedom Convoy” that were run
by spammers “who used abusive tactics to mislead people about the origin and popularity of
their content to drive them to off-platform websites.” However, it is unclear whether whether other inauthentic behavior is continuing despite Meta’s broader efforts.
To assist the Committee in its review of this matter, please respond to the following
questions by February 28, 2022:
- 1. How many inauthentic accounts have been identified by Facebook related to the
“Freedom Convoy” or connected efforts?
- a. When and how were these accounts identified as inauthentic?
- b. Were any of these accounts part of coordinated networks or campaigns? If
so, please describe.
-
c. From which countries has Facebook identified “Freedom Convoy” content
originating or amplifying?
- d. What is the reach or influence of these accounts, including how many
impressions the content originating from these accounts received
- Please
provide any interim or final analyses of the reach or impact of these
accounts.
- e. Where did these accounts drive traffic to?
- f. What links were posted from these accounts?
- g. How many advertisements were shown alongside content from these
accounts, and how much revenue did Facebook earn from these
advertisements?
- h. Were advertisements purchased for “Freedom Convoy” or related terms?
If so, has Facebook identified any of these purchases that originated from
outside North America?
- 2. How many reports of compromised or hacked accounts did Facebook receive in
Q4 2021? How many reports have been received in Q1 2022?
- a. How many of these reports were escalated above an automated response?
- b. What was the average time of response to users?
- c. What is the average time of resolution for each reported case?
- d. In the case of the Missouri woman’s hacked account, when did Facebook
become aware of her account being compromised, and what action was
taken in response?
The Committee on Oversight and Reform is the principal oversight committee of the
House of Representatives and has broad authority to investigate “any matter” at “any time” under
House Rule X.
An attachment to this letter provides additional instructions for responding to this request.
If you have any questions, please contact Committee staff at (202) 225-5051.
Sincerely,
Carolyn B. Maloney
Chairwoman
-->
@zedvictor4
And if you ever do live under a tyrannical regime, you will have real reason for concern.
Tyranny is like soccer without the red cards. Great entertainment as you said.
-->
@ILikePie5
Canadian Police shot a woman in the leg with a R1 40 mm gun. Legalized misogyny.
A cop hit her three times with a club and then shot a tear gas canister at her leg from point-blank range.
Trudeau has instructed his police to attack journalists.
-->
@Greyparrot
Didn’t the Deputy PM say they were gonna keep these emergency powers forever or something
-->
@oromagi
wait, are you serious ?
-->
@ILikePie5
Didn’t the Deputy PM say they were gonna keep these emergency powers forever or something
Who is going to stop them?
-->
@3RU7AL
No doubt, Canada's enemies are going to take advantage of self-inflicted wounds as tyrants choose to terrorize their own citizens.
I don't think Canada has enemies. The United States does but I don't think Canada has any problems. At least according to the Canadians. Other than maybe they're bacon sucks.
-->
@3RU7AL
-->@oromagiyou caught mei'm a russian agent
fuckin' Russians.
-->
@3RU7AL
-->@oromagiwait, are you serious ?
not always, no. Why do you ask?
-->@ILikePie5Canadian Police shot a woman in the leg with a R1 40 mm gun. Legalized misogyny.A cop hit her three times with a club and then shot a tear gas canister at her leg from point-blank range.Trudeau has instructed his police to attack journalists.
- Of course, you can't claim to be a journalist while recording yourself in a scrum actively trying to rip weapons out of the hands of police (1:39)
- Journalists are required to be objective in their reporting
- Obviously, committing crimes on behalf of the protestors wipes out any claim to objectivity or journalistic immunity- you are just another youtubing lawbreaker at that point
- Let's note that none of Lavoie's claims are actually backed up by video. There were hundreds of cameras recording the event and yet none of them seem to capture the attack as described by Lavoie. Again, this refutes "journalist" as a journalist would have got that shot.
- In spite of Ted Cruz's false claims of protesters "trampled to death," I find no report that a single protestor was hospitalized.
- Let's note that the co-founder of Rebel News and most of its original reporters, the Conservative Party of Canada, the UPC, and the Canadian Assoc. of Journalists all denounce Rebel News as a pro-Fascist propaganda outlet.
- Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes has served two terms as a regular contributor
- Let's also note that crying abuse is a commonplace tactic for Rebel News. They always promise to file a complaint and sue but never do.
- https://www.rebelnews.com/raw_rebel_reporter_attacked_by_trudeaus_bodyguards
- A journalist would know better than to approach the PM's party with a device in hand
- https://www.rebelnews.com/rebel_news_reporters_attacked_while_police_stand_by_ezra_levant_says_enough
- https://www.rebelnews.com/take_back_toronto_rebel_news_reporter_attacked_in_public_park_encampment_mayor_ignores_city_s_decline
- https://www.rebelnews.com/full_video_reporter_avi_yemini_attacked_by_antifa
- https://www.rebelnews.com/global_news_keean_camera_alleged_attack
- https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/alleged-assault-on-rebel-tv-reporter-at-womens-march-in-edmonton-draws-police-investigation
- https://globalnews.ca/news/3198597/rebel-staff-member-alleges-she-was-assaulted-at-womens-march-in-edmonton/
- https://www.rebelnews.com/were_suing_the_montreal_police_for_assaulting_another_rebel_news_reporter
- If members of your tiny fascist website are more or less constantly complaining about getting attacked by police, bodyguards, homeless people, fellow conservative politicians, real journalists, women's marchers, dogs etc., etc., etc. then
- Let's assume that it is all just " boys crying wolf" until they actually capture something real on camera and actually file one of those thousands of lawsuits they are constantly threatening
This is an awesome victory for misogyny around the world. Legalized women beating plus the infinite adulation of internet fanbois for every bruise inflicted on a woman.
Soccer without red cards. The best bloodsport.
It's about time tyrants started putting these upstart women into hospitals and morgues.
Breaking the clavicle of a little old lady with a walker by mowing her over with an authorized horse has to be the most adrenaline pumping thing I have seen since the ice bowl.
And oh man! that massive bruise on that lady's thigh makes me lick my lips with carnal glee. Let's see more. More blood Mr. Trudeau!
Got it.
when fascists attack women's shelters =/= misogyny
when fascists attack women who are actually serving them food for wearing a mask at a soup kitchen =/= misogyny
when fascists pelt women EMTs with rocks =/= misogyny
when fascists breaking laws and attacking cops fake injury and cry = misogyny
Yes! destroy that little old lady attacking an authorized horse with her walker! Bleed her!
-->
@ILikePie5
Even the Canadian people understand unjustified emergency acts are not legal and Trudeau needs to be held accountable.
"As long as America doesn't fall, there's still a semblance of hope for the rest of what's left of the free world."
-Some anonymous Canadian
Based on recent events, emergency acts should not exist on any level. I pray they can liberate themselves, and hold accountable any politician or "law enforcement" that conformed to this.
Imagine the trauma felt by the trucker's children seeing their parents treated this way. I cannot believe this is Canada!
People don't realize how bad this is and that's scary and this is why people need guns to protect themselves from a tyrannical government.
Many other countries condemning Prime Minister Black face over this. I truly hope Canadians remember what he and others did when it comes election time.
Trudeau: Peaceful trucker protest: Invokes Emergency Act....
Also Trudeau: Violent BLM riots: Takes a knee with them.
That tyrannical bootlicking police chief admitting that they're going to destroy the lives of everyone involved with this protest is amazing. He COULD have lied rather than admitting that they're going to go full-authoritarian against these people, but he just went out and admitted to their evil intent. That's incredible.