Thursday July 2, 2020 ~ COWICHAN | GREATER VICTORIA, BC
by Mary Brooke, editor ~ West Shore Voice News
On Canada Day, Sonia Furstenau announced that her BC Green Party leadership campaign will join the growing list of organizations forgoing paid Facebook ads in July as part of the Stop Hate for Profit campaign.
The campaign is calling on Facebook to take more responsibility for its role in facilitating the promotion of hateful content.
“Ending systemic racism means eradicating it from all of our institutions. Social media companies are very powerful institutions that are overdue for taking responsibility for their role in facilitating the spread of hate online,” said Furstenau.
The power of advertising:
“When my campaign was reviewing our paid ad strategy for July, we became aware of this campaign and realized we had a responsibility to do our small part to show solidarity and raise awareness about this issue,” said Furstenau in a news release on Canada’s national holiday July 1.
“Malicious disinformation and content that stokes hatred is eroding democracies worldwide. This is extremely dangerous,” she said.
Holding social media accountable:
“We must hold social media companies accountable for their role. As legislators, we need to take a much more proactive role in exploring how we can protect the digital rights of citizens, the vital role that news and information plays in our democracy, and the responsibility we all have to call out hateful content,” said Furstenau who has been the MLA for Cowichan Valley since being elected to a first term in May 2017.
Furstenau’s campaign for party leadership:
The BC Green Party leadership race was launched in the fall of 2019, with Furstenau announcing her candidacy in January 2020.
The full leadership process was suspended in March for a few months due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
New candidate applications will be accepted from June 26 to July 27 and voting will take place September 5-13. The results of the leadership contest will be announced on September 14.
===== Related:
Green MLA Sonja Furstenau announces leadership bid (January 27, 2020)
BC Greens leadership race back in action: September vote (June 18, 2020)