internet

Specializing in safety checks

Verify Digital’s Fred Ullrich, who served as sergeant of digital forensics at the Vancouver Police Department until his retirement this year, has extensive experience in search techniques. (photo from Verify Digital)

These days, especially, you can’t take any chances when you’re hiring someone to work for you, bringing them into your home as a service provider or taking them on as a tenant. What do they really think about Jews, about Israel and about the world? Are they a safe bet or a threat to your family and business? Most of us would do a Google search to check, or look at someone’s social media handles. What we don’t realize is that the information our searches reveal barely scratches the surface of what might be out there.

That’s why Vancouver-based Verify Digital was created by Fred Ullrich and Jewish community members Jamie Wosk and David Wosk: to conduct in-depth searches into individuals’ digital footprints and deliver a full perspective on their background and beliefs.

The new business partners go back a long way.

In the late 1980s, David Wosk – who established and ran Wosks Coffee Service for almost 60 years – became one of the original members of the Vancouver Police Department’s Community Crime Watch, which is where he met Ullrich, who was a Crime Watch volunteer before becoming a police officer.

photo - David Wosk is as a business advisor at Verify Digital — David Wosk is as a business advisor at Verify Digital. *(photo from Verify Digital)*

The Vancouver Police Department awarded Wosk the 2024 Community Safety Leader Award for his decades of dedication to community service, crime prevention and public safety. He has received many other awards, such as the Attorney General’s Award, and commendations for his helpful role in various incidents.

Jamie Wosk – David’s son, who was general manager of Wosks Coffee while also serving as a Vancouver Lifeguard for more than 33 years – also has received recognition for his life-saving actions over the years.

In Verify Digital, Jamie Wosk oversees sales, while David Wosk acts as a business advisor. Ullrich, who served as sergeant of digital forensics at the VPD until his retirement this year, brings his extensive experience in search techniques to the company. He was tasked with doing some 1,500 pre-employment background files for the VPD.

“There were only a few where I was unable to find an online footprint, either because they were much older, or because they’d previously been involved in police services and knew they had to be covert online,” he told the Independent. “But, today, there’s not one young person without a social media footprint. And, if they’re not there, it’s because they’re using secret names or have deleted their profiles to prevent future employers from looking into their past.”

photo - Jamie Wosk oversees sales at Verify Digital. — Jamie Wosk oversees sales at Verify Digital. *(photo from Verify Digital)*

Verify Digital’s main clients are institutions who hire many new employees each year. But, out of care and concern for the safety of the Jewish community, Ullrich is offering basic and in-depth searches to individuals, too.

“As a patrol officer, I spent many nights guarding synagogues and I responded to calls at Vancouver Talmud Torah regarding suspicious people on the school grounds. I also saw the firebombing at Schara Tzedeck,” he said. “The reason we’re doing this is that there’s a need, and it will help the Jewish community know who they are dealing with.”

Ullrich conducts all the background searches using a proprietary software that searches across some 28 social media platforms. It yields results you’d never find on a Google search, he explained, because Google is a marketing tool that provides results based on what it thinks you’re looking for.

“There’s a huge science behind finding material,” he said. “And, there’s a consistent percentage of people who have social media content that is embarrassing, inappropriate, highly offensive or simply does not align with the views of their potential employer, especially if they are hired to be in a position of trust.”

Ullrich has had many of what he calls “OMG moments.” One individual who was applying for a position of trust had started a business in Richmond and was taking customer money while not providing a product. She was looking to extend her fraud through the new employer, and they were on the cusp of hiring her until they learned this information.

Another had a clean social media presence until Ullrich discovered he was using a secret username. That revealed six years of racist and misogynistic comments on social media that more accurately depicted his beliefs.

The cost of Verify Digital’s services depends on the kind of screening you need and ranges from $99 to $199 per person, with a two-to-three-day turnaround time.

Ullrich said the “old way” of reference checking just doesn’t cut it anymore. “Social media tells a more complete, telling picture of a person’s character and beliefs,” he said.

“I encourage my clients to do a search themselves, and compare what they find to what I find using proper systems, because there’s a big difference,” he added. “To find information, you really have to know where to look.”

For more on Verify Digital, visit verifydigital.com.

Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond.

Dialogue to empower women

Caroline D’Amore, left, Hussein Aboubakr Mansour and Emily Austin spoke to an audience of more than 550 at Congregation Schara Tzedeck Nov. 26 for the event Women United. (photo by Kyle Berger)

Some 550 Vancouver women packed the sanctuary at Congregation Schara Tzedeck Nov. 26 for Women United, a talk arranged by Jewish National Fund, Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, Stand With Us Canada and Schara Tzedeck, and sponsored by the Diamond Foundation. Jewish women were encouraged to bring their non-Jewish friends, and Federation reported that 40% of attendants were non-Jewish.

“The idea was to bring together a diverse range of women from all faiths, to engage in dialogue and empower us to speak up with bravery,” said Megan Laskin, who initiated the concept for the event. She noted that there are just 15 million Jews worldwide “but we are the victims of half of the hate crimes that occur. Our pain, our fear and our loneliness are very real and very deep.”

Emily Austin, 22, an American social media influencer who is the host of a National Basketball Association podcast called The Hoop Chat w/ Emily Austin, was the first speaker. She described how she took a deep dive into Jewish history to understand it better. “One thing Israel will always have on its side is facts,” she noted. “The Palestinians have truly sad videos with no facts, but people tend to overlook the facts because of the emotional nature of the narrative.”

Austin delivered some of those facts to the audience, refuting the Palestinians’ claims of genocide. “Go to UN.org and you’ll see that their population has quadrupled in the last 20 years,” she said.

In discussing land claims, she said, “this is not about land. It’s about Jew hatred.” She argued that, when Israel left Gaza in 2005, the Gaza Strip was a prosperous area filled with resorts, cafés and nightclubs. “They turned it into a terrorist capital,” she said of Hamas.

Austin urged members of the audience to educate themselves so they can address false claims with confidence. “There are no excuses to not be a voice when we have the facts. If you’ve not been vocal, please be vocal now,” she said. “Silence is compliance, and those people who want Jews dead are not being silent.”

Austin warned that this conflict is not just about Israel, or even just about Jews. “When they say kill the infidels, the West is next. The common denominator is hatred, and it’s a disease,” said Austin.

Caroline D’Amore, 39, a single mom, social media influencer and the entrepreneur behind Pizza Girl pizza sauce, was the second speaker. She described herself as “a not-so-subtle, pink-haired, Malibu Italian chick” and a high school dropout. She said learning about the Holocaust and reading Anne Frank’s diary made a deep impression on her, but that she was unaware of antisemitism until Oct. 7, after which she started seeing it everywhere, and felt compelled to speak out.

D’Amore said she published a video expressing her dismay and a fact that was obvious to her. “The terrorists are the bad guys. There is no context on this earth that could justify rape and murder,” she told the audience.

The video went viral and D’Amore received hundreds of messages from mothers who were so relieved that a non-Jew could see what was going on.

“I could feel their pain, sadness and fear,” D’Amore said. “So many people are saying nothing, or shaming Jewish people for feeling this fear right now. Jews are being told to ‘stop playing the victim,’ and even I get accused of playing ‘the Zionist victim card.’ What I want to say to my accusers is ‘how dare you?’

“It’s very clear to me that this is about good versus evil,” she continued. “I dove right in and started screaming about this at the top of my lungs, and though I’ve been attacked online for over a month now, I’m still here, proudly showing my face. I plan on being on the right side of history, which means standing up against terror in the Middle East and against those who are justifying what happened on Oct. 7. My promise is that I’ll continue to use my voice to stand up against evil, to stand up for humans who are suffering, to speak up against terrorism, and to encourage and empower others to use their voices.”

D’Amore said the Jewish community was her inspiration. “You guys find the light and it shines so damn bright,” she said. “You come together in the most beautiful ways, and it’s inspired me in ways I’ve never known possible.”

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour, the third speaker, addressed the audience by Zoom from his home in Washington, DC. Now the director of the Endowment for Middle East Truth’s Program for Emerging Democratic Voices from the Middle East, he was born in Cairo, into an environment that he said inspired him and his peers to hate Jews and become jihadists.

“From an early age, there was a story I heard everywhere, that there are people who epitomize wickedness, want to destroy Arabs and Muslims and steal our land, and want to destroy everything that is good and sacred. Those people are the Jews and Zionism is the embodiment of that ideal,” he said.

Curious, he started teaching himself Hebrew and learning about Jewish history. That led him on a long journey that transformed his relationship with the world and turned him into an ardent Zionist and supporter of the Jewish people.

His metamorphosis and his insistence on publishing, blogging and talking about what he learned, has cost him dearly. He was disowned by his family, was arrested on suspicion of being a Zionist spy, and was tortured in Egyptian jails before receiving political asylum in the United States in 2012.

“I spend every day of my life thinking about how to help end this epidemic of antisemitism that’s been going on for so long,” he said. While the massacres on Oct. 7 destroyed much of his optimism, Mansour said he still believes a change for the better is possible.

He ended his remarks by saying that he is proud to be a friend of the Jewish people and of the state of Israel. “And I have no doubt that I’m not the only Arab who feels this way – I’m just ahead of the curve,” he said. “There will be more who will see this truth.”

Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond.

Countering lies and hate

Peter Julian, the New Democrat member of Parliament for New Westminster, recently tabled a bill to address what he suspects are algorithms that encourage online extremism. B’nai Brith’s annual audit of antisemitic incidents, released recently, said three-quarters of antisemitic incidents last year took place online. And, as the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs notes in their Not On My Feed campaign, “Online hate leads to real-world violence.”

Few people would disagree that online hate and incitement are problems. How we confront it – that’s where we get into the weeds.

It is possible to control what people read on the internet – countries like China and Iran have demonstrated that, in anti-democratic and oppressive ways. Democracies like Canada should not join the high-tech book-burning that is internet censorship by government. Governments and regulatory bodies, of course, do have a role, however. Setting parameters for acceptable online behaviour and then enforcing these to the extent possible must be a role authorities take on. Staffing limitations are obviously a challenge, but several precedent-setting cases could send a message to others.

Social media behemoths like Facebook and Twitter should take action where they can to delete the most dangerous incitement. These corporations have proven themselves either incapable, unwilling or incompetent at this task. Governments need to incentivize vigilance by making lack of response financially unsustainable. In Germany and France, for example, social media platforms have 24 hours to take down hate speech or risk fines. Likewise, internet service providers (ISPs) have a responsibility to monitor the independent sites housed on their networks, the places where hate groups recruit and train.

Interventions like these are important, but of limited impact. For example, ISPs are based everywhere and every country has different rules around online content. Even Canada and the United States – countries perhaps as comparable as any two on earth – have dramatically different ideas about limitations on freedom of expression.

Attacking online hate and incitement is a perpetual game of Whac-A-Mole. However, just because a task is difficult does not mean we should shy away from it. On the contrary. We must do more of what is difficult.

We are a mere two generations into a connected civilization. We are still babes in the online woods. Yet, in many ways, we behave as though we are in the world we once knew.

We are no longer in a world of three TV networks and two daily papers. We are on a planet of nearly eight billion people – and anyone with an internet connection has an ability to reach audiences exponentially greater than the most powerful voices of a century ago.

It is simply not possible to effectively police online content – though we are correct to monitor and identify the worst of the worst.

There are two things that democratic societies that seek social peace and coexistence must strive toward. First, we need to empower individuals and organizations to counter untruths with truths. We must make it as easy to access the facts as it is to stumble upon misinformation and disinformation.

Google News, for one, has taken to adding a fact-checking section to their search results pages. The site Snopes.com provides a compendious analysis of online truths and fictions (although it has had its own veracity issues, involving a plagiarism controversy in 2021.) On issues of antisemitism, a veritable constellation of organizations exists to identify and correct misinformation, including HonestReporting, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) and the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

But we also need to attack this problem at the other end, on the “consumer” side. We must do a better job of educating and equipping people in democratic societies to critically discern fact from fiction, news from commentary, legitimate criticism from unfounded bias and hate. In a time when parents and others are concerned that education systems are not effectively teaching what are collectively, if imprecisely, called “the basics,” anyone asking teachers to also become instructors in the complexities of media bias and online incitement is going to come up against preexisting groups calling for more life skills training, more “three Rs,” more economic literacy, more mathematics and science, more physical fitness, etc. There is only so much that can be fit into a six-hour school day.

We live in a time and place where one of the most watched “news” networks routinely feeds falsehoods to viewers, even if a cost of doing business is a legal settlement of $787 million. Those lies led to an insurrection that tested the strength of American democracy more than anything probably since that country’s Civil War. That was an early warning signal for every democracy about the price of disinformation. We cannot hope this problem goes away, because what is likely to go away in such a scenario are our most cherished societal values.

We must do more of everything we are already doing. We must confront and contest the lies and hatred online (and in other media). We must allocate our philanthropic funds to organizations that counter lies and incitement. We must include everywhere we can – in formal and informal educational settings – lessons on identifying facts from falsehoods.

In an online world where conflict and hatred get algorithmic kicks to the front of the line, we must teach the young (and the older and less tech-savvy) to value that which unifies and enriches. In the simplest formulation, we need to remind our children, our grandchildren and ourselves of that old truism: don’t believe everything you hear or read.

Race to the bottom

It may not be a total coincidence that one of the most recent conflicts over book banning is taking place in McMinn County, Tenn., less than an hour from the town of Dayton, in the same state, which was the site of the renowned Scopes “Monkey” Trial, 97 years ago.

The fight over whether Art Spiegelman’s graphic memoir about the Holocaust, Maus, is suitable reading for high schoolers echoes the earlier debate over whether teaching the theory of evolution was appropriate fare for students in a place and time where the biblical creation story was the only accepted narrative.

The debate over the banning of books and ideas is a hot topic these days, though hardly a new one.

Fortunately, we live in an age when banning ideas is nearly impossible in a free, or even partly free, society. Only in totalitarian and authoritarian regimes are governments able to block information. Around the world, in many countries, gaining access to forbidden ideas is relatively easy. In North America, the New York Public Library, among others, has made it easier for people anywhere to access specifically banned or challenged materials. People who want to seek out publications that authority figures try to limit are generally able to do so.

A phenomenon less easily addressed is the proliferation of misinformation and disinformation. This proliferation is the flip side of the ability to access banned ideas. In a world where anyone with a computer can access information, anyone with a computer can just as easily invent information and then circulate it widely.

Misinformation and disinformation have always existed. But almost certainly never have they so dramatically defined civil discourse. The difference between these two terms is important. One source calls misinformation “false information that is spread, regardless of intent to mislead.” Disinformation, from the same source, is deemed “deliberately misleading or biased information; manipulated narrative or facts; propaganda.” Both are problematic, but intent matters. Misinformation can sometimes be righted through correctives. Disinformation is often formulated in ways that actively deter correction.

For example, the greatest threat to American democracy right now is a narrative that has been formulated in such a perverse, Orwellian manner that the perpetrators of the lie that the 2020 U.S. presidential election was illegitimately “stolen” are the very people who are trying to steal a legitimate election. Those who perpetuate a lie accuse opponents of lying.

The first issue of The Atlantic magazine this year was almost entirely devoted to this subject and the thesis, if we may summarize crudely, is that, unless some dramatic corrective is applied, American democracy has less than two years to survive.

The internet, which is the keystone of our 21st-century ability to read and write virtually anything, has also emerged at a time of massive diffusion of so-called “mainstream media.” The grandchildren of those who grew up with three TV channels can now access thousands. We self-select our information and entertainment, with the impact that we have more, but smaller, frames of reference. One of the results of this is that we have largely been able to choose our own “truths.”

There are no simple solutions to these problems. But, if there is an antidote to ignorance, misinformation and disinformation, it is a recommitment to liberal values of free expression and unbridled academic inquiry. Applied to younger generations, this means inculcating in them an ability to assess and analyze context, information and sources. This sounds like a simple remedy but, of course, learning to think critically is a lifelong pursuit and cannot be taught in a single semester.

Yet, this is the primary way forward. As a society, we need to acknowledge that critical thinking is the foundation upon which democracy and civil society rests. We have abandoned balanced discussion and nuanced consideration of topics in favour of memes and slogans that suit our purposes.

We face a tough crawl out of the hole we find ourselves in – that is, assuming we have stopped digging – but confronting and contending with challenging ideas is the ideal we must strive for. Every banned book is another shovelful of dirt in our democracy’s race to the bottom.

Positive Jewish leaders online

It’s hard not to doom scroll lately, but I’ve been heartened by watching Jewish leaders take centre stage via social media. These are bright spots in a difficult time. Here are a few to Google and follow. I’ve learned a lot online this way. Perhaps you might, too.

In the world of social media and Talmud study (yes, that’s a thing!), the short social media videos of Miriam Anzovin have gotten a lot of attention. She offers TikTok, YouTube and Instagram posts and links via Twitter. These are on the Daf Yomi, the 7.5-year cycle where one studies a page of Talmud a day. Anzovin’s amazing effort offers a brief summary and analysis of some of the big rabbinic issues. It’s also a breath of fresh air in a field historically dominated by men. Anzovin is a writer and visual artist. She describes her videos as “Daf Yomi reaction videos.” These takes often include slang, curse words, and perhaps difficult interpretations for the usual Jewish text study audience.

Some Orthodox men have voiced criticism to this approach to Talmud study. I would argue that this is a defensive, unhelpful reaction. More Talmud study is good. Talmud study of any kind, is, quite simply – more. It brings more attention to Jewish text and ideas, which is a good thing both for Judaism and for intellectual analysis. Sometimes, the reaction stems from being forced to admit that there are other perspectives and ways of reading religious text. Anzovin centres women’s voices, issues and opinions, critical thinking, liberal and modern views of very old texts. Social media offers her a perfect platform and her work has taken off. It’s long past due. I’m thrilled to see her show up in my feed.

Rabbi Sandra Lawson has been one to follow for awhile. She’s a leader – an activist, a musician and a teacher. Her social media presence allows me to learn a lot. I’ve learned Torah, said Kaddish, and more. Through her anecdotes, she’s encouraged hard examination of ways in which racism is a problem in Jewish life. She’s taken on a lot of firsts in both her former role as the associate chaplain for Jewish life at Elon University and is now the first director of racial diversity, equity and inclusion at Reconstructing Judaism. She was the first African American and first openly gay African American accepted by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. Her open, strong online presence embodies many things Judaism needs to see: her identity as a veteran, vegan, personal trainer, musician and wise educator pushes the boundaries of what some people think Jews or rabbis look like. For younger Jews on the web, seeing her laughing with her wife Susan, featuring her little dogs as she makes music – these are models of joyful, modern Jewish life that we need now more than ever.

What does informal Jewish education look like on Instagram? Well, many people source Jewish news specifically from A Wider Frame (@awiderframe).

Debbie, the jewelry designer behind @rootsmetals, posts deep dives into very specific historic, geographic and cultural Jewish topics. It comes complete with bibliographies. Prepare for her snarky responses to trolls (ever present online) who try to threaten her well-being.

Ashager Araro, @blackjewishmagic, is a liberal, feminist, Black Israeli. She does incredible work as an educator in person in Israel. She’s also on Instagram and Twitter, and travels to speak at Hillels and Jewish student centres in the United States. Her focus on Ethiopian Israeli history and modern Jewish life is illuminating, particularly for those who view race only through a parochial North American lens.

Some social media education targets a specific group. For example, Shoshanna Keats-Jaskoll speaks out for others who aren’t able to in the Orthodox world. She tackles the issue of agunot. Agunot are women who cannot obtain a Jewish divorce from their husbands and are unable to remarry according to Jewish law. Keats-Jaskoll also works to provide modest images of women through an internationally sourced photo bank. This works to combat the erasure of women’s faces and bodies and imagery in Orthodox photos, publications and Israeli billboards. Chochmat-Nashim (Women’s Wisdom), her organization, advocates for Orthodox women, including both modern Orthodox and Haredi groups in Israel and the diaspora.

This is just a taste of what’s out there. It’s a start to diversifying your feed. You may have noticed that I started by writing about leaders I admire and, guess what? They’re all women. It’s not that I don’t admire some male leaders. There are plenty of them and some of them are fine human beings – but too many “leader lists” leave women out entirely. March 8 is International Women’s Day. It’s one thing to say we advocate for equality, and to celebrate women’s achievements on a specific day. It’s another to raise up, embrace and educate on a daily basis.

Our tradition offers us moments to celebrate women’s roles, such as the recitation of Woman of Valour (Eishet Chayil) in some homes on Shabbat. However, that’s not a standard practice in every household. Plus, it’s only one moment of one day of a week, when Jewish women are contributing 24/7.

Many of our paid leaders, rabbis and cantors, and even volunteers, such as synagogue board members, are men. It’s been “traditional” to embrace a male leadership model in some communities. However, in an era when more of our lives are both online and more egalitarian, it’s OK to stop the doom scrolling and open up one’s mind – and feed – to some new leaders. In this case, they also just happen to identify as Jewish women.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Rights in the digital age

Taylor Owen, one of Canada’s leading experts on digital media ethics, is the featured speaker at this year’s Simces & Rabkin Family Dialogue on Human Rights event Nov. 9. (photo from cigionline.org)

On Nov. 9, the Simces & Rabkin Family Dialogue on Human Rights, in partnership with the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, hosts the online program Is Facebook a Threat to Democracy? A Conversation About Rights in the Digital Age.

Platforms like Facebook, which collect and share huge amounts of information, are being accused of putting profit above democracy and the public good. Can government regulation protect us and our children from online harm and misinformation – or is “Big Tech” ungovernable? How can Canadians balance freedom of expression and protection from harm on social media?

These questions and many others will be discussed by Taylor Owen in conversation with Jessica Johnson.

Owen is the Beaverbrook Chair in Media, Ethics and Communications, the founding director of the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy, and an associate professor in the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill University. He is the host of the Centre for International Governance Innovation’s Big Tech podcast, and is also a senior fellow of CIGI. His work focuses on the intersection of media, technology and public policy.

Johnson is editor-in-chief at The Walrus magazine. A former editor at the Globe & Mail and National Post newspapers, she is an award-winning journalist who has contributed essays, features and criticism to a wide range of North American publications. She was the co-creator, with Maclean’s journalist Anne Kingston, of #MeToo and the Media, an inaugural course in the University of Toronto’s Book and Media Studies program.

The Simces & Rabkin Family Dialogue on Human Rights will be on Zoom on Nov. 9 from noon to 1:30 p.m. PST. It will include an audience Q&A session opportunity. Register to attend the event via humanrights.ca/is-facebook-a-threat-to-democracy. Once registered, you will receive a confirmation email and, later, a reminder for the event.

– Courtesy Simces & Rabkin Family Dialogue on Human Rights

Taming online world

Two bills recently introduced by the federal government are aimed at reducing online hate and putting some controls on the anarchic world of online commentary. Some, like Jewish community organizations, have been calling for stronger rules to deal with rampant online vitriol. Others, like civil liberties groups, balk at any incursions into unfettered expression. It might not matter anyway.

Bill C-36 is intended to crack down on online hate, something Jewish community advocates and many others have been supporting since a similar section of the Canadian Human Rights Act was repealed in 2013 over concerns around free expression. Groups like the Canadian Civil Liberties Association have expressed apprehensions over the new bill, as they had over the repealed section.

The bill would make it an offence to make statements on the internet that are “likely to foment detestation or vilification of an individual or group of individuals on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.” It would target commentary that is “motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other similar factor.”

The bill defines hate as “the emotion that involves detestation or vilification and that is stronger than dislike or disdain,” and is not merely language that “discredits, humiliates, hurts or offends.”

A different piece of legislation, Bill C-10, is also aimed at online content. In this case, the government would require platforms, such as social media and video streaming sites, to enforce guidelines that extend Canadian content rules, which have long governed radio and TV, to the internet. Again, critics say this is an infringement on the freedom of expression.

Both bills attempt to walk a line between free speech and the government’s attempts to encourage particular outcomes. They are likely to please some and they are likely to offend many. Both are probably founded on the best intentions, but, as critics have pointed out, Canada already has hate-speech laws that apply online and off.

Given the chaotic efforts of social media companies themselves to enforce guidelines for conduct and to curtail hate speech, it is difficult to imagine how legislation would provide a clearer guide to online etiquette. More worrying is the possible chaos that human rights tribunals and courts might have thrust upon them if Canadians begin reporting thousands or millions of problematic online statements.

We should be wary of heavy-handedness not only because the proposed laws hand a lot of arbitrary decision-making power to government or judicial overseers, but also because it is unwise to bury hateful ideas. The best way to confront hate and extremism is to shine a light on it, not to force it onto emerging platforms created specifically to give shelter to the most extreme people and ideas.

However, this all might be moot because Parliament has recessed for the summer. If, as many speculate, a federal election is called before Parliament resumes, these pieces of legislation would die. If the Liberals were to be reelected, they could reintroduce the bills. Conservatives have charged that the two proposed laws are “virtue signaling,” as much about campaign fodder as substantive change. The NDP and Bloc voted in favour of Bill C-10, with the NDP asserting that the “modernization of the law is necessary for [the] cultural ecosystem.”

Whatever the fate of these two bills, the fight against hate (online and off) will continue. We have long contended that the most powerful response to hateful words is more words – words that heal and educate. The online world is a jungle of facts and fictions, wonder and woe, insights and insanity. It is, perhaps, like the larger world, only condensed onto a small screen that amplifies the most fringe and sensational voices. Criminalizing those voices may or may not bring the result most of us seek, which is a kinder world. That said, contesting the worst of the online world is a Sisyphean task that we cannot abandon.

The medium is the message, said Marshall McLuhan, who died long before ordinary people heard the word “internet.” The anonymity and unruliness of the internet has no doubt helped to create a toxicity in our culture. But, while we should take seriously dangerous ideas online, we should remember that these are symptoms of strains in society and not solely products of the technology. Addressing online hate demands returning to first things and addressing all forms of hatred and division in our society. Fixing the online dialogue demands changing minds – and that has been the challenge since long before the advent of the internet.

Evaluating info online

Dr. Noah Alexander was the keynote speaker at the Jewish Seniors Alliance Spring Forum on March 21. (photo from medicalmentorcommunity.com)

Can I Trust That? Evaluating Health Information Online was the topic of the Jewish Seniors Alliance Spring Forum, held virtually on Sunday, March 21.

Gyda Chud, co-president of JSA, welcomed about 100 people to the afternoon event. She reminded attendees of the four foundational elements of JSA: outreach, education, advocacy and peer support. She then turned the mic over to Tamara Frankel, a member of the program committee, to introduce the guest speaker, Dr. Noah Alexander.

Alexander is a practising emergency physician at Vancouver General Hospital. Although he usually works on the front line, he also works to empower patients. He does this through his role as the associate director of digital health literacy at the InterCultural Online Health Network. This organization helps members of many different communities understand and manage their chronic health conditions.

Alexander began his talk by stating that his goal was to provide a systemic approach to health education. He highlighted many elements, beginning with the question, How do you know who to trust in this information age?

When using a search engine (he likes to use Google Chrome), use key words or short sentences to find information. When looking at the search results, consider whose website it is, their credibility and the value of the content. Credibility and content are key to the whole process. For example, who wrote the article or blog, and are they known and respected? How old is the entry? Is it relevant to the question you’re asking? Is it peer-reviewed or is the writer or organization accredited? Check the site’s URL: for example, .com entities are usually commercial and profit-based, whereas URLs ending in .org, .gov and .edu are not-for-profit.

Check both the credentials of the authors and whether they are being paid and, if so, by whom. If the entry has advertisements, there is likely to be a bias involved, Alexander warned. He said people should not trust a Wikipedia entry for important information, as anyone can add their own comments to the post. Rather, use a credible health website such as the BC Centre for Disease Control, HealthLink BC, Vancouver Coastal Health, or any other government agency.

If an article’s page contains links to other websites, there could be a conflict in that they may be selling merchandise. Red flags should be raised when cures are being offered and sold online, said Alexander. Do not trust simple, non-medically proven solutions, or advice contained in group chats. Make sure that there is a privacy policy.

Alexander then presented an interactive quiz based on his presentation, after which Chud thanked him for clarifying the elements involved in seeking accurate health information online. She also summarized the questions attendees posted in the chat and Alexander answered a number of them.

The answer to the question posed about health information online – “Can I Trust That?” – is yes … if you follow Alexander’s suggestions.

Shanie Levin is program coordinator for Jewish Seniors Alliance and on the editorial board of Senior Line magazine.

Trump’s golden idol status

When Moses went up Mount Sinai, the Israelites grew restless and constructed a golden calf to worship. Every Jew and everyone with any theological literacy knows what happened next. So it came to pass that, last weekend at the annual convention known as the Conservative Political Action Conference in the United States, a giant golden statue of Donald Trump was wheeled around, drawing adulation and selfies. With an apparent absence of irony, the defeated president was transformed into a literal golden idol.

CPAC has been an annual shindig for Christian and other religious conservatives, libertarians, right-leaning economic thinkers and a big tent of the country’s centre-right. As evidenced by last weekend’s iteration, it is now, like so much of that country’s political establishment, in thrall to Donald J. Trump.

This is the latest in an avalanche of evidence that, despite losing the election, Trump maintains a stranglehold on the Republican party and much of the country. The literal idolatry he inspires deserves fresh consideration. It is the inevitable end-point (we hope) of a trend that was predictable.

It is easy – and not wrong – to view the perpetrators of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol as domestic terrorists who threatened the very foundation of American democracy. But these people view themselves – or, at least, some do, based on interviews after the incident – as saviours of democracy. They (or, at least, many of them) genuinely believe that the election of Joe Biden was a result of a rigged process; that millions of votes were stolen or some other jiggery-pokery ensured that the true voice of the people was thwarted.

They believe this because they have been told, repeatedly and as recently as last Sunday at CPAC, by Trump, the man they believe won the election, that the process was rigged, that American democracy has already collapsed and that the election was stolen. Thus, we observe people attempting to steal a free and fair election carrying signs demanding, “Stop the steal.”

Certainly, some recognize that the election was fair but hop on a bandwagon arguing otherwise simply because they dislike the outcome. But there are many who are absolutely convinced that corruption and trickery unjustly deprived Trump of a second term. More alarmingly, a subset apparently believes in an entirely alternate reality, in which Trump is still president, operating the “legitimate” government from his Mar-a-Lago retreat or, even more fancifully, that a series of events is yet to unfold in which the election will be proven wrong and Trump will triumphantly return to the White House.

Listening to the comments of some Americans on cable TV or in online sources is chilling. It is hard to decide whether the scarier position is the one that winks at the truth, as many Republican members of Congress do, claiming disingenuously that they merely want to investigate to make sure the election process was fair, or the one that is rooted in thin air, asserting, despite all evidence and scores of court decisions, that Trump was cheated.

There is much talk of the political polarization that the United States and other countries are experiencing, a result in part of a refraction of the media universe. We are now all capable of consuming a diet of news and information that completely reinforces our prejudices. Combined with a charismatic (to many, anyway) leader who repeats lies endlessly while stoking a narrative of grievances, this refraction has led not to differences of opinion but to incongruities about the very facts of history and current events. To use a condescending and clichéd construction, the people who are convinced Trump won are themselves victims of their leaders’ lies.

This is not to let either side entirely off the hook in this time of division. Much has been made of perceived snobbery that dismisses or diminishes the intelligence or goodwill of Trump supporters. Terms like “wokeness,” which suggest one side has awakened to incontrovertible truth while the rest of the world is mired in somnambulant ignorance, do not leave much room for constructive dialogue. The certainties of the left are visible online and on cable news as well, if for now at least founded more sturdily on a foundation of reality.

There is much talk of healing the divided society that Biden has inherited. Even this elicits disagreement, however, with some demanding accountability for the egregious oversteps of the Trump era before moving on to making nice.

This challenge runs deeper than politics. The United States may be an urgent example but all societies must confront the divisions created by the diffusion of information and contested ideas of “truth” in the internet era. This is a challenge for educators, for elected officials, for thinkers and activists and, significantly and problematically in a free society, for media.

A society requires some shared understanding of reality. When we are literally arguing over the definition of truth, when terms like “alternative facts” are uttered without a smirk, we have a problem. To say nothing of a chunk of the population who reject science, including denial around whether a virus that has killed more than 500,000 Americans actually exists. This is a desperately urgent, possibly existential, challenge for democratic societies. The first step may, as in other cases of human behaviour, be acknowledging we have a problem.

Trump exploited, and continues to exploit, a situation in which it is possible to convince large swaths of people that up is down and black is white. But, while he makes excellent use of the ambiguity of our time, he is a product of it. Whether Trump remains an influential figure or not, we have inherited a world where others like him will emerge from a miasma of mistruth unless we find some common foundations of fact.

Trying to protect cyberspace

As the use of the internet has grown, so has the need to protect data stored online, as well as prevent an organization’s website or social media platforms from being hacked. Since COVID-19 has hit, that need has increased manifold, as businesses, communal agencies, schools and synagogues have moved most of their activities online.

Cybersecurity, and security in general, is an area on which the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver has focused attention and resources for years. In 2015, it formed a security advisory committee, headed on a volunteer basis by Vancouver lawyer Bernard Pinsky.

photo - Bernard Pinsky, head of Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s security advisory committee — Bernard Pinsky, head of Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s security advisory committee. *(photo from Jewish Federation)*

Pinsky, who was born and raised in Winnipeg, has been involved in the local Jewish community in various ways since he and his wife, Daniella Givon, an Israeli, moved here in 1981.

“Since the first war in Lebanon, I got involved in the Jewish community in a very big way … because I was concerned that the Jewish community in Vancouver was way too reluctant to get involved and raise their head and fight anti-Israel sentiment, both in Vancouver and across Canada,” said Pinsky.

Pinsky has volunteered with and supported many charitable organizations, both in the Jewish and general communities, and his efforts were recognized with a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012.

Over three years ago, the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver was one of almost 150 North American Jewish institutions that received a bomb threat. All of these threats ended up being traced to an Israeli teen and no one was hurt, but the potential harm raised concerns higher than they’d been in the past.

“In 2015, the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver decided we need to start a security committee, which was focused on physical security,” said Pinsky. “They asked me to be the committee chair.

“We started a physical security committee, which would train some volunteers, send people to events and help some of the synagogues train their people in security – not to carry weapons or actually try to take down terrorists, but to be extra eyes and ears before police are necessary … and to know how to defuse situations, if possible.”

The idea was to work with an overarching communal view and pool resources, rather than having each organization have to take on their own security initiatives. Jewish Federation annual campaign funds have since helped with security-related equipment, policies and programs. In 2017, Daniel Heydenrich was hired by Federation as director of security and he has coordinated efforts, trained volunteers and staff, worked with community members and law enforcement, as well as helped procure federal government Security Infrastructure Program grants.

About a year ago, when cyber-attacks on companies and institutions worldwide started involving ransom demands after systems were hacked, it became obvious that, in addition to physical security, cybersecurity was also an issue that needed to be addressed. And, in 2019, a cybersecurity and information protection subcommittee was created.

“We spent the first few months determining what our mandates were, who we were going to be helping, how we’d help, and how much would be as volunteer work and how much would be referring people out,” said Pinsky. “Then, COVID-19 hit. Very quickly after, we started making all of these decisions. With COVID-19, everybody had to be working from home, all of a sudden … people weren’t going to work in the office. So, the fact that you had office cybersecurity protocols … from home, this could be completely different – your own personal computer could be hacked.

“We realized that what we really needed to do was to offer to go into organizations and help them determine how well-protected they were. One committee volunteer decided to create an assessment tool, where we’d go through a series of questions with the organization and could tell them how weak or strong they were in different areas of cybersecurity and information protection.”

After making that assessment, the committee would then provide a list of recommendations to bridge any security gaps.

The mandate of the subcommittee, wrote Pinsky in Federation chief executive officer Ezra Shanken’s Sept. 25 Shabbat message, “is to recommend and communicate to Jewish community agencies information about specific cyberthreats and guidance that is published by recognized authoritative sources regarding cybersecurity (e.g., best practices, assessment tools, educational/training materials and policies/procedures); to provide training sessions; and to help Jewish community agencies work together to procure and implement cybersecurity services from commercial providers, where available. A key aspect of the subcommittee’s work is to help our partner agencies understand their level of exposure to cybercrime and to make recommendations on how to reduce the risk.”

So far, the cybersecurity experts on the committee have conducted six or seven assessments. Not wanting these volunteers to be overtaxed in the long run, Pinsky said, “We’re starting to train some additional people now. Hopefully, we’ll have some people qualified to do [assessments] within a month or so.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.