Danielle Smith seeks conflict before clarity on Facebook and Ottawa's job plan

It would be no small thing if a social media giant blocked the account of the premier of Canada's fourth-largest province — either for a declared reason, or "for who knows what," as Danielle Smith's top aide put it.

It would stand to reason, then, that it's no small thing if the premier of Canada's fourth-largest province declares such a brazen form of censorship, when it does not appear that's why one person with access to Smith's Facebook page was temporarily prevented from posting.

Free speech and censorship are critically worth debating and understanding, especially in our fast-evolving digital age in which private multinational companies have towering influence on what gets heard and what doesn't.

Also of massive importance, especially in Alberta, is another major file that figured prominently in this week's political conversation — the complementary issues of climate action and the massive employment revolution that will accompany it. It's no small wonder the Smith government is demanding a say on the makeup of a new federal sustainable jobs advisory council, given the amount of disruption that an energy transition, "just" or otherwise, will have on much of Alberta's workforce.

These consequential matters deserve full and serious debate. But they also can prompt panic and overreaction, which does disservice to the public conversation — especially if coming from high office. 

Lost in transition

In January, Smith started the new year publicly scrutinizing Ottawa's then-unpublished "just transition" plan, just as the Liberals were fine-tuning a report and had begun rebranding it "sustainable jobs."

Quickly, the premier's warnings against a "phase-out" of the oil and gas sector turned to rhetoric about the wholesale annihilation of the industry.

Why? An Ottawa media outlet had just highlighted a June 2022 briefing note to the natural resources minister, which mentioned a "large-scale transformation" in the same sentence as a reference to 202,000 Canadians employed in the energy sector, and a tally of 2.7 million jobs nationwide.

Premier Smith characterized this as "eliminating entire sectors of our economy" in a pair of interviews with Postmedia columnists. "When I saw the memo, I felt a pit in my stomach," she told the Calgary Herald.

Not all cases of nausea are preventable, but this one likely was. The minister's office clarified that the memo's passage referred to the total number of jobs — period — in energy and other sectors, not a forecast of losses.

After the contorted rhetoric was revealed, Smith dropped it, having already used it in interviews, a fundraising letter, a social media video and more.

Free to speak, to like and share

Free speech and the spectre of online censorship have also been at the core of Smith's politics, especially in the last few years during the pandemic when she quit talk radio (and Twitter, briefly) because she didn't want to feel restrained.

Wary of crackdowns in mainstream social media, she launched an account in 2021 on the upstart locals.com, where controversial utterances would later cause her political headaches.

But a return to mainstream politics necessitated a return to Twitter (where she has more than 190,000 followers) and more presence on Facebook (93,000).

This much is known about what happened this week. There were five Facebook users registered as administrators of Smith's politician page, and one tried publishing a post about her re-elected government's commitments. He or she got an alert message:

"Sorry, you can't post to Facebook from this account. For security reasons, your account has limited access to the site for a few days. If you have any questions, please contact our Help Center."

On Wednesday afternoon, Smith declared on Twitter that her Facebook account was "banned from posting content" — and offered grave warnings about tech and government censorship.

"As the Premier of a province of 4.6 million Albertans (it's 4.7 million now—ed.) — if they can prevent me from communicating with you, imagine what they can do to any one of us," her non-banned Twitter account reported, sending allies like Jordan Peterson to the ramparts. 

Only it appears her Facebook account wasn't banned, after all. A statement from Meta, Facebook's parent company, explained that no restrictions were placed on the premier's page, but "one of the page's administrators faced restrictions." 

The social media company is explicit when it decides to take down content, and has published rules on when it limits action on public pages like Smith's.

After Meta's clarification, the premier's team resumed using her Facebook page, saying "I hope this is the last time this happens." Smith also posted the error message her Facebook page received, which refers to a security issue, not a content issue.

Did Smith contact anyone at Facebook or Meta? Did another of her aides with access to the page try posting? Did they do anything to figure out what a security alert is, as compared to a content-based violation of Facebook's community standards? (Here's a recent Alberta example of what a standards violation alert looks like.)

CBC News put several detailed questions about this incident to Smith's office. The reply: "We have no further comment and hope Facebook will ensure this doesn't happen again."

To clarify

What links these two incidents, the alarm over jobs that Ottawa won't kill by memo and a major public figure's Facebook account that appears to not have been censored for spurious reasons?

In both cases, it appears that Smith's alarm bells could have been pre-empted by an email or phone call to a federal minister or a California based company, trying to fully understand a message that could, if taken a certain way, come across as jarring and offensive.

Maybe there was a reasonable explanation! Alternately, maybe there was political hay to raise!

In both cases, the premier apparently assumed the darkest and most menacing meanings from statements about account access or energy sector employment. Instead of seeking clarity, she sought the rhetorical big red button — only to pull back without saying so after journalists went scouting for the necessary context.

Now elected, Smith has the premier's pulpit for several more years. What leaders say in public can move financial markets, can spring public servants into virtually any type of action mode, can send citizens to the streets (or their keyboards) in protest.

The stakes are high on free speech, energy transition and so many other issues. The hyperbole need not be.