Canadian Official Escorted From House For Others' Facebook Comments

New submitter zayyd writes "The CBC reports that publicly-elected Gerry Rogers, member of the Provincial Government for Newfoundland and Labrador, 'has been removed from the house of assembly for refusing to apologize for comments made by other users on a Facebook group of which she had been added to as a member.' Rogers was unwillingly added to a Facebook Group which included comments of death threats aimed at Premier Kathy Dunderdale from other users. From the article: 'Dunderdale said her government understands how Facebook groups work, and she said it is up to every MHA to monitor the comments posted on Facebook groups to which they belong.' Facebook's policies for Groups are somewhat clear, even if they don't actually answer the question of 'Can I prevent people from adding me to a new group?'"

Comments

Oh Canada...

[DoofusOfDeath]

You just seem more insane year after year. I wonder if there will be a day when Canadians gripe that they're on the verge of moving to the U.S.

That doesn't seem like a good system

[PhamNguyen]

She was removed for "contempt", for refusing to apologize. This seems like a misuse of that kind of procedure. Contempt should be for, for example, swearing at another politician in the chambers. Being able to remove elected politicians on such a slim pretext is very dangerous to democracy.

Proper form of apology

[Attila Dimedici]

The proper form that the apology should have taken is this, "I am sorry that anyone was offended because someone added me to a Facebook Group that included tasteless comments, comments that may constitute illegal threats of violence, made by someone else. I do not condone such language."

The obvious solution:

[LihTox]

Add Kathy Dunderdale and her allies to as many unseemly Facebook groups as possible.

Meanwhlie, nobody in Canada cares

[Tridus]

Speaking as a Canadian... yawn. This is not getting much attention in Canada. It's just a couple of parties in a provincial legislature finding something new to bicker about. The same sort of thing happened last week in New Brunswick over who called someone a "witch" first, so they could determine who had to retract it (they had to go back to video of the session to answer that one). This one just happens to involve Facebook, and so it's sexy to some media.

What happened is entirely routine. Someone was involved in something that goes against the decorum of the legislature, someone else complained. They wouldn't apologize, so they were tossed out of the building for the day. They leave the FB group and the whole thing goes away. Almost nobody outside the legislature gives a damn, except to point out that it's not a terribly professional or productive environment if this is taking up significant time.

If the same thing had happened only not involving Facebook, the story would not be posted here. Politics is absurd on either side of the border, only people outside Canada don't see the local variety of "absurd" very often. Today you get to.