Cattroll: Return to office — don't believe what you see on social media

Just look through the top comments in the Ottawa sub-Reddit and it won’t take you long to find conspiracy theories and misinformation about how the Treasury Board mandate came to be.

Published Sep 19, 2024  •  3 minute read

The streets of downtown Ottawa were more crowded than they'e been in a long time as public servants returned to work earlier this month.

Downtown Ottawa felt a little more normal recently, as thousands of public servants returned to their offices pursuant to the Treasury Board’s mandate to work in the office at least three days a week.

The Public Service Alliance of Canada is strenuously protesting the return-to-office mandate and has filed a court challenge. Nonetheless, despite the union’s objections, and while there was the usual grumbling over the state of Ottawa’s transit system, most public servants seem to have accepted the mandate by turning up this week.

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However, if you were to peruse the social media service known as Reddit, or its cousin X.com, you would be forgiven for thinking that Ottawa was on the verge of a revolution, as angry public servants prepare to man the barricades, overthrow the tyranny of the Treasury Board, and proclaim a workers’ republic where all shall have the right to work from home until the end of time.

Do not fear, Ottawa. The sound and fury on social media over the return-to-office mandate is an apt reminder of why we should, as a general rule, ignore social media when making important policy decisions.

To illustrate my point, let’s talk about Reddit in particular. For those that do not know, Reddit is a social media service that is divided into “sub-Reddits” for specific areas of interests.  Reddit users can join a sub-Reddit focused on a topic and discuss the topic with other likeminded users.  Ottawa has its own sub-Reddit.

Currently on the Ottawa sub-Reddit you will find several posts with thousands of supporting comments bemoaning the return-to-office mandate, calling for a boycott of downtown business, and the defeat of any politician who dares support the mandate. All the comments on the Ottawa sub-Reddit are made behind the shield of completely anonymized accounts, many of which have been created in the past few weeks.

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There is nothing wrong with people expressing their political views anonymously online — this is an important democratic right — but it illustrates the age-old problem that on the Internet, anyone can be a dog, or more ominously in 2024, a different kind of public servant, sitting in an office in Moscow tasked with stirring up discontent in the capital of a NATO member.

Think I am exaggerating the risk? Just look through the top comments in the Ottawa sub-Reddit and it won’t take you long to find conspiracy theories and misinformation suggesting that a dark cabal of downtown business owners, real estate companies, and the mayor have conspired to force public servants back to work, notwithstanding that the mayor has no constitutional authority over the federal public service.

As a former downtown business owner myself, I can assure you that I never sat in the basement of a pizza parlour and plotted with the mayor to force public servants back to work.  I’ve never even met the man.

Conspiracy theories and misinformation are right out of Russia’s playbook and just last week Dominic LeBlanc, the minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs, issued a statement condemning Russia’s efforts “to spread disinformation, influence election outcomes, undermine democracy and rules-based international order, and engage in information operations and cyber incidents against Western targets.”

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All of this is to say, while I have no doubt that some people are legitimately upset about being forced to go back to the office, we should never take our policy cues from anonymous accounts on Reddit, X, Facebook, TikTok, or any other social media service. The risk to our democracy and political discourse is simply too great.

Stewart Cattroll is a lawyer practising in telecommunications and technology law and a former business owner in downtown Ottawa.

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