Canadian politicians have increasingly taken to social media to campaign as well as communicate with constituents, sharing updates on policies, local events, emergencies or government initiatives.
But stories have emerged of constituents being blocked by their representatives. Should Canadian politicians be free to block their own constituents?
Some politicians claim the blocking is to combat increased online harassment, while constituents have claimed that simply being critical of policies or initiatives is enough to get them blocked.
Some recent cases in Canada include federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault being asked to unblock Ezra Levant on X in 2023, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith blocking constituents on X in 2023 and Montréal Mayor Valérie Plante blocking comments on X and Instagram in 2024. In 2018, Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson was sued by three local Ottawa activists after blocking them on X.
Great way for them to slowly create a nice echo-chamber around themselves.
That hardly would serve the people.
As someone who has a very quick trigger finger for blocking people I can say this logic extremely flawed.
Once you remove all the people that provides little substance and essentially just spam slogans its actually pretty transformative for what comes through.
In specific context of this conversation platforms should be forced to offer more blocking tools and granurity for those tools.