BC Liberal Party Is Violating BC Election Act Sec 223 on Election Day by Online Advertising

Post from: Adult ADD Strengths

Update3 The Vancouver Sun today Wed may 13th 09 has linked to this post and covered the story on page A11.  Also The Victoria Times Colonist is also linking to this post on their story in todays paper on page B7.

The penalty for breaking the law could include up to a $10,000 fine and a year in jail. “The penalties are up to the chief electoral officer’s discretion,” said Ken Faris ( Elections B.C. spokesman). “Since the B.C. Liberals responded to our request (to take the offending tweets down), we’re not going to pursue the issue any further.”

Liberal spokesman Chad Pederson said the party removed the items after being contacted by Elections B.C.

“We think it’s a debatable point,” Pederson said, noting that the technology is new. But rather than argue the matter, he said, the party chose to take the items down and pursue the issue at a later date.

Update2 Looks like Green Party also breaking election laws advertising on Twitter on election day #bcelection #bcvotes2009 Like the liberals they’ve deleted their tweets from twitter via Georgia Straight here’s the tweet

Go Green – Be Green – Vote Green

BCGreens: Go Green – Be Green – Vote Green #bcelection
about 14 hours ago from Nambu

http://twitter.com/BCGreens/statuses/1773456965

and the same tweet 6 hours later

You can find it by searching twitter for the name of the tweet

Also BC Liberals violated the law 3 times not one, my mistake.

The Vancouver Suns @gillianshaw shows that Elections BC doesn’t really understand the internet that well and that Elections BC said the BC Liberals “were in contravention of the act” and ordered the BC Liberal party to delete their tweets at 10.30am. But the one I took a screenshot of was still there at 1.30pm

UPDATE: The BC Liberal party has deleted the tweet, without apology or explanation. I have i higher rez version if people are interested they can email me for it.

Around 9.30 this morning, Tuesday May 12th, 2009, The BC Liberal Party violated the BC elections act, section 223 by doing online advertising on Twitter.

The BC Liberal Party’s Offical Twitter account

published this tweet

The BC Liberals are the best choice to build B.C.: http://tinyurl.com/dmy3mq #bcelection
http://twitter.com/bcliberalparty/statuses/1775236510

clicking on that tinyURL link goes to this link on the BC Liberal Party’s official website titled “Improving and protecting vital public services” and talks about how much the govt has spent on health spending.

Rather ironic since the BC Liberals are TOTALLY Ignoring the BC Medical Associations 8 recommendations on ADHD in their February policy paper. It said that ADHD is costing BC half a billion annually but they only counted children with ADHD and ignored adults with ADHD, and there’s more adults with ADHD than kids with ADHD. So it’s costing BC multiple billions

I’ve tried asking several Liberals on twitter for their position on the BCMA ADHD policy paper and none have responded. The Liberals like the BC NDP, BC Greens & BC conservative party are basically using social media in an Anti-social manner, just one way advertising vs acutal conversations. I’ve asked many BC MLA candidates on twitter for their position on the BCMA ADHD policy paper and got either no response or some generic non answer avoidance strategy ie “whole system needs to be revamped”

I even asked 2 of their MLA candidates Colin Hansen and  Margaret MacDiarmid in person last Thursday at the Ridge and the responses I basically got was the Kim Campell quote ie an election is no time to discuss policy. They and NDP Mel Lehman all basically said there’s only a few days left in the campaign no time for policy discussions contact me after the election. Marget was the past president of the BC Medical Association and said as a doctor she’d be more open to dealing with that, and Mel seemed to be genuinely interested if my memory serves me correctly but still no policy response. I wish I had brought a tape recorder.

Here’s my screenshot of the BC Liberal Party’s tweet from my Flickr site

Found this on twitter from @lobbycanada on my #bcelction tweetdeck feed

RT @lobbycanada: Watch the @bcliberalparty break #bcelection law in real-time! Just follow them on Twitter as they tweet away in contravention of Section 233
http://twitter.com/lobbycanada/statuses/1775311783

then this

RT @lobbycanada: #BCElection Act, Section 233: On General Voting Day, election advertising must not be published, transmitted or broadcast. @BCliberalparty
http://twitter.com/lobbycanada/statuses/1775327696

Then I googled the elections act. The BC election site was limited to votefinder and election results all rest locked down.

So on BClaws.ca found this

Election Act
[RSBC 1996] CHAPTER 106

Part 11 — Election Communications
This Act is current to November 1, 2008

12 Ways to Fight Mental Health Stigma With Social Media

Post from: Adult ADD Strengths

This is for a presentation I’m doing at Mental Health Camp Vancouver (a conference combining social media with mental health) called ADHD – Busting the myths, breaking the stigma, showing reality, one post and tweet at a time. While ADHD is especially stigmatized as the orphan of mental health conditions, especially Adult ADHD, it’s not the only one that suffers stigma.

12 Ways to Fight Mental Health Stigma With Social Media

Arranged from more anonymous to more personal, and less effort to more effort. There’s a choice for everyone.

1. Click on a factually correct, non stigmatizing mental health article, or personal story via a blog post, tweet, podcast, YouTube video, Facebook update, Friendfeed, web forum etc. Result will traffic to the site/account, encouragement for the creator to continue to create, possible revenue and good for SEO just from that one simple easy click.

2. Actually read/listen/watch above content. Assuming the content is non stigmatizing, and helpful, interesting, or entertaining do one or more of the following.

3. Vote on it /rate it, i.e. number of stars if available.

4. Socially bookmark it in site’s like Stumbleupon, Delicious, etc.

5. Submit it to sites like Digg, Yahoo Buzz, Reddit, Mixx, Propeller etc.

6. Forward the content to others either without a comment, or with a personal comment by :

a) Email
b) Twitter i.e. Retweet it, or on Facebook, Friendfeed etc

7. Comment on the original article, post, video etc in one of the following ways depending on your comfort level:

a) anonymously
b) with your first name
c) with your full name
d) with your full name and the name of your blog/website/Twitter account etc.

8. Do a response to the original content by a blog post, tweet, or video on your blog or social media account

9. Respond to someone lying, stigmatizing, minimizing, trivializing, or shaming a person with a mental health condition or the actual condition itself. This can be done in a wide variety of creative ways depending on your personality, subject knowledge, and comfort level with conflict, some of us occasionally enjoy conflict for a good cause:) Perhaps involve your social media friends in the effort.

10. Create some original content that’s factual, anti stigma or a personal story or story about someone you know, or all of the above on one or more of your social media accounts.

11. Participate in a social media mental health campaign. I.e., anti stigma, awareness, fund raising, political action, online petition, contacting politicians etc. Could be all online or a combination of online and offline i.e. involving traditional media.

12. Create a social media mental health campaign.

If you know of any other ones or some good examples of the above, please share them in the comments for others. If you think this was useful, please do one of the above for this post:)

Hopefully some of you might take one action now and ask your BC MLA candidate if they support the 8 Recommendations of the BC Medical Association in their February policy paper on ADHD. Currently BC has NO Strategy at all on ADHD, Adults with ADHD are especially ignored, ADHD is costing BC billions annually, and the BC Liberal Party, the BC NDP, and the BC Green Party have all ignored the recommendations, they have nothing at all in their platforms for ADHD. Hopefully BC ADDers won’t be abandoned again.

If you don’t know your riding use the BC MLA finder

List of  BC Liberal Party candidates

List of BC NDP candidates

List of BC Green Party candidates

List of BC MLA candidates on twitter