Social media can be Achilles heel for politicians, aides

Social media accounts give election candidatesunparalleled visibility and as all the major parties know, thatisn't alwaysagoodthing.

On Labour Day weekend, the Conservatives were forced to dropToronto-Danforth candidate Tim Dutaud after he was found to haveposted videos of himself making crank calls on YouTube in one, heposed as a mentally disabled man; in another, he feigned an orgasm.

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LateTuesday, the director of communications for NDP Leader TomMulcair apologized after two-year-old tweets surfaced in which hetook aim at the Roman Catholic Church. Shawn Dearn used an expletivein reference to Pope Benedict for saying Britain's human-rightspolicy on gay equality violated natural law.

"Memo to CBC and all media," one of the two-year-old tweetsreads. "Stop calling the misogynist, homophobic, child-molesting Catholic Church a 'moral authority.' It's not."

In a tweet to his followers late Tuesday, Dearn apologized.

"Some tweets that predated my current role were offensive and do not reflect my views," he said. "They are being deleted and I apologize sincerely."

It was notclear how the past tweets resurfaced. In the meantime, Dearn'sTwitteraccount has been locked and is no longer accessible tothe public.

Mulcair is standing by his aide.

"He has apologized for those views," he told reporters when asked about the remarks in Niagara Falls, Ont. "His apology was sincere. He felt very bad about it and I'm more than willing to move on from that."

According to Steve Ladurantaye, head of news and governmentpartnerships at Twitter Canada, such discoveries are unsurprisingnow that social media has been around long enough that candidateshave a decade or more of material stored online.

"You've had nine years of Twitter to tweet things with," hesaid."Only a couple of weeks of those were during your campaign whenyou're actually thinking about what you're tweeting from a politicalstandpoint."

Dutaud's incident is one in a series of questionable orembarrassing online posts by candidates that have been pounced on bymedia and opponents during the first weeks of the federal electioncampaign.

• The Conservatives showed the door to Montreal candidateAugustin Ali Kitoko after he shared an album of photos from NDPLeader Thomas Mulcair's Facebook page.
• Another Tory candidate in Montreal, Gilles Guibord, was forcedto resign over sexist comments he allegedly made in online commentssection of the Journal de Montreal newspaper.
• A young Liberal candidate in Alberta, Ala Buzreba, resignedafter four-year-old tweets surfaced of her telling someone theyshould have been aborted with a coat hanger and another to "go blowyour brains out." She apologized for the comments.
• An NDP candidate in Nova Scotia, Morgan Wheeldon, was forced toresign after suggesting in a 2014 Facebook post that Israel wasengaged in "ethnic cleansing."
• Soheil Eid, a Tory candidate in Joliette, Que., apologized twice fora Facebook post that drew a parallel between the words of Mulcairand comments attributed to Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's infamouspropaganda minister.
• Wiliam Moughrabi, Conservativecandidate in the Montreal riding ofAhuntsic-Cartierville, had to erase online comments that were deemedviolent and misogynist in nature.
• VirJiny Provost, a young Bloc Qubcois candidate inMegantic-L'Erable, embarrassed her party after a survey she answeredcame to light. Asked what she would need in the event of a nuclearattack, Provost wrote she'd bring "her cellphone, a penis andchips."
• Sue MacDonell, a board member for the Conservatives' Bay ofQuinte Electoral District Association, was fired after she posted onFacebook that a Cree woman recently crowned Mrs. Universe was amonster and a "smug entitled Liberal pet."

The list of blunders is likely to grow as there are still severalweeks left in the marathon campaign.

More blunders likely

Ladurantaye said what strikes him most about the campaign is notwhat he calls "individual bozo moments," but rather the ability ofsocial media to magnify incidents and even change the campaign.

He pointed to Conservative candidateJoe Oliver cancelling a speech ata men-only club amid a social media backlash, or the video ofnow-former Conservative candidate Jerry Bance caught in 2012 in asecret CBC video urinating in a homeowner's coffee mug.

In the past, such incidents would have made the news for a fewdays but not necessarily caused resignations or event cancellations,he said.

"Things that would have boiled and disappeared now have a moreimmediate fallout."