DOCUMENTS: CBC admits contacting social media companies to censor online user content

The admissions were made in an order paper reply to a question posed by Conservative MP for Niagara, Dean Allison.

Though required by the inquiry to provide details of the social media take-down requests by the heavily subsidized state broadcaster, CBC did not offer any information about the nature, authors and topics of the social media content it targeted for censorship. However, scant details were provided by other federal agencies.

Allison's query covered January 2020 to February 2023 and asked for any attempted or successful requests by any federal agency, including the CBC, to have user-generated content on social media removed, altered or otherwise censored through direct contact with social media companies.

According to the data provided by the Federal government, Health Canada contacted Facebook at least three times to demand the removal of posts with "disinformation about lifting of COVID-19 restrictions."

The Public Health Agency of Canada, meanwhile, was busy policing "offensive language" on Twitter.

The Immigration Review Board (IRB) demanded posts be taken down by Facebook and Twitter for linking to a Toronto Sun story because the article was "risking undermining public confidence in the independence of the board." The IRB did not dispute the accuracy of the Sun story.

The Privy Council Office, the cabinet's chief bureaucratic army, echoed earlier replies to Rebel News' access to information filing and denied asking for any social media content to be removed. However, documents submitted to the Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC) indicated that PCO staff made requests to have Freedom Convoy participants' social media posts censored.