When it comes to government information, there is no dearth of sensitive matters. As it turns out, a “fun fact” about sea creatures belongs on the list.
Fisheries and Oceans Canada tweeted about the parasites plaguing swordfish last November. Two days later, the tweet was deleted.
the reason? “Sensitivity regarding parasites,” says the department.
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“We recognized after posting that using the word ‘parasite’ without further explanation could leave a negative impression about swordfish and the fishery,” spokeswoman Karianne Charron said in an email.
This was not the only time in recent history that a government department or agency has expressed regret for hitting the send button on a social media post.
Since 2019, Tweets have been removed for anything ranging from mundane formatting errors and spelling mistakes to threatening comments or, in some cases, sentences that didn’t quite get off the ground.
Conservative Member of Parliament Michael Barrett requested details about the deletions in a written question, and the government recently tabled its answer in the House of Commons.
Last September, the Privy Council Office sent out condolences on Twitter following the death of Queen Elizabeth II – but then discovered an inconsistency in the spelling of her name between the English and French versions of the message. It was removed and then reissued after the post decided to stick with the English version of the dead king’s name.
Parasites in fisheries and oceans weren’t the only source of regret. When the department tweeted a video about the sustainability of the seafood industry, staffers who were initially looking for ideas ultimately decided that “the angle of the message was wrong.”
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And the department found itself deleting another post, this time about a Coast Guard vessel that had transferred fuel to another vessel. The tweet was redacted after staff discovered the gas was contaminated.
The staff behind a Twitter account for the government’s surplus buying website – which includes items seized by police – kiboshed a post advertising a gold Rolex “about the watch being potentially stolen ( enquiry).”
Some other decisions had more serious concerns behind them.
The RCMP has edited or removed tweets from its national account at least 13 times, including last December. That’s when he apologized for promoting an online application for firearms licenses on the 33rd anniversary of the École Polytechnique massacre, when a gunman killed 14 women and wounded 14 others at the Montreal engineering school.
Protests against last winter’s “freedom convoy” also prompted the Mounties to tweet at least four about Ride to Music, a specialized unit aimed at boosting the force. It came as a result of alleged death threats against officers who were part of the unit, after their personal information was leaked through messages shared in the RCMP Musical Ride group chat.
Hate speech against women and LGBTQ people, which had trickled into the comments, led the Treasury Board to remove the post based on Women’s History Month in September 2021.
While some of the deletions highlight the cynicism that exists on social media, others show the ways employees tried — and perhaps failed — to use the platforms for light-hearted humor.
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On one occasion, the Canada Revenue Agency tried to turn the unofficial December holiday of “National Monkey Day” into an opportunity to drive people to use its online portal.
Asking Canadians to “be a chimp-ion this tax season” and describing the perks as “absolutely one-peel”, the message includes monkey and banana emojis. The agency said it was considered too risky, as it could be taken “out of context”.
On May 4, the National Research Council Canada tried to join in the fun on what is colloquially known as Star Wars Day _ because “May the Fourth be with you.”
But his tweet about meteorology was deleted two weeks later. The department got rid of the message, she said, after determining that the space material had fallen outside its “mandate.”
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