Meta Removes Dozens Of Groups, Pages And Accounts Associated With Truck Convoy Protests In Canada, Here's Why!

Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, became one of the targets of a convoy of truck protests in Canada. (photo: twitter)

JAKARTA - Facebook's parent company Meta Platforms said Monday, February 7 that it has removed dozens of groups, pages and accounts linked to a truck convoy protest in Canada run by international spammers and scammers, including from Vietnam.

A "Freedom Convoy" has been disrupting life in downtown Ottawa for 11 days. This convoy, started as a movement against mandatory vaccination in Canada for cross-border drivers. These actions turned into demonstrations against the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau and the rejection of many of the Canadian government's public health measures.

"We continue to see scammers linking hot-button issues of interest to people, including the ongoing protests," said Meta spokeswoman Margarita Franklin.

"Over the past week, we have removed Groups and Pages run by spammers... who use abusive tactics to mislead people about the origin and popularity of their content to direct them to off-platform websites," Franklin said. Meta says users are sent to a website filled with pay-per-click ads.

Protests in Canada have also been promoted online by far-right communities and social media influencers in various countries including the United States.

"The Canadian convoy movement has been championed online by extreme right-wing communities & offers a blueprint to extremist COVID protest groups around the world," Ciaran O'Connor, an analyst with the think tank Institute for Strategic Dialogue that tracks extremism, said in a tweet on Friday. Twitter.

The Canadian convoy movement has been championed online by extreme right-wing communities & offered a blue print to extremist COVID protest groups worldwide. As Mark says, the future of global anti-Covid mobilization has arrrived.We helped Politico track the spread of this⬇️ https://t.co/ALkgE8bv5y

— Ciarán O'Connor (@ciaranoconnor) February 7, 2022

Meta said it had also removed a Facebook group linked to the convoy protest for violating its rules against sharing content promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory.