When social networks become virtually a hell for the elect

Photo courtesy
Pascal Bonin has lost access for a month to his page Facebook, in which he had invested a lot of time and money.

Matthew Payen

Thursday, 28 December 2017 22:58

UPDATE
Thursday, 28 December 2017 23:21

Look at this article

Photomontages violent, fake accounts that are detrimental to the reputation, blocking accounts in full electoral campaign. Social networks are a great communication tool for elected officials, but they can also become their worst nightmare.

The mayor of Granby, Pascal Bonin, found himself in the unfortunate posture in the spring. While he was preparing his communication to the November elections, his account Facebook is rich of 3600 friends has been blocked because of a complaint for identity theft against him.

“It was a brothel total,” he said. I have invested thousands of dollars and a lot of time in this account, so there was no question that I lost a few months of the elections. “

For the mayor, it was the location of the sprinkler sprinkled, while he himself had denounced in the past a dozen accounts who used his name and his photos.

Mr. Bonin had to show your credentials from Facebook, even going so far as to send a photo of him holding in hand his health insurance card to prove his identity.

After a month of battle, and he would eventually recover his account, but without knowing the identity of the man who had played a round.

“I had to delete most of my personal contacts because the report came from,” he said. It is not easy to eliminate close to its network, but it was the only way to protect myself. “

Network contact

The misadventures of Mr. Bonin is not an isolated case. In 2015, the mayor of Chelsea, Caryl Green, had to complain to the police to shut down a Twitter account in his name peddling false statements.

“They have used photos of my children and have done photomontages violent,” laments the mayor.

The more difficult, according to her, it is that the police has never been able to put the hand on the leaders. “I have lost confidence in the social networks,” she says. They have a great influence on people, but it can turn against you if you’re not careful. “

The other big user of social networks, the mayor of Magog, Vicki May Hamm, has had multiple blockages to his page Facebook, but also to a false account… on a Network contact. For the married woman and the mother of four children, the joke is not passed.

“Someone had recovered all of my information and my pictures on the internet and it was used to create the account. Fortunately, I was warned by a friend, but it would have been the cause of controversy “, she says.

Insurance and training

Aware of the growing problem, the Union des municipalités du Québec (UMQ) launched, two years ago, an insurance policy protecting the privacy of elected officials. Almost 150 municipalities have already agreed to cover legal costs in the event of damage to reputation.

Since the elections in November, the UMQ has also integrated a component on the protection of privacy and the social networks in its training to the attention of new members.

“Elected officials are more and more exposed, so it is important that they know when the critics go too far,” explains the spokesperson of the UMQ, Patrick Lemieux.

Despite the risks, Ms. Hamm encourages elected officials to use social networks to get closer to citizens. She even spends twenty minutes per day to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. “But I’m very careful when I get requests for friendship “, she says.