Facebook purges pages linked to protests in Canada

Photos of the Canadian truckers appeared on anti-vaccine groups
on Facebook and other social networks about two weeks ago. Since
then, prominent far-right figures in numerous countries, including
the United States, Australia and Germany, have praised the protests,
spreading the images and arguments even more widely.
(https://nyti.ms/3gtxyEu)
The hashtag used by the truckers, #FreedomConvoy, has spread
quickly across social media. On Facebook, the hashtag has been
shared over 1.2 million times since Jan. 24, according to
CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned analytics tool. Another Facebook
group dedicated to following and supporting the truckers has
attracted nearly 700,000 followers.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, said it removed several groups
associated with the convoy for violating their rules around inauthentic
behavior. One group had sent people to external sites to buy
merchandise. Another group had violated Facebook’s rules by sharing
content tied to the banned QAnon conspiracy movement. The company
said it was still reviewing other groups formed in connection to the
truckers’ protest. On the messaging app Telegram, several right-wing
figures, including Dan Bongino, Michael Flynn and Ben Shapiro, have
promoted the protest and shared links to fund-raising sites that have
collected millions of dollars.
American anti-vaccine groups have also begun forming local wings of
the movement and have urged truckers in the United States to adopt
the tactics in Canada. A GoFundMe page created on Jan. 14 accumulated
more than $7.8 million before it was frozen by the crowdfunding
platform and then halted on Friday. In a statement, the company said
donors could submit requests for a refund.
GoFundMe had released only about $789,000 of those donations before
the fund-raiser was shut down, after the company consulted with the
police. In the United States, Senator Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican,
called for the Federal Trade Commission to investigate GoFundMe
over the halted campaign, joining a chorus of other U.S. politicians
and legal figures accusing the crowdfunding site of deceiving donors.
Supporters have since been channeling their funds to other platforms,
including GiveSendGo, a Christian crowdfunding site that had raised
more than $5 million as of Monday evening.