Ottawa seeks help with seal message

[daleo]

The federal government is opening a new front in its decades-old clash with anti-sealing groups, shifting the battlefield from ice floes to the Internet.

Concerned that seal protests timed for the Vancouver Winter Olympics may further bloody the country's reputation, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade posted a contract for a company to monitor and neutralize “well-organized anti-sealing groups” who are cultivating vast support online through Facebook, Twitter and other social-networking sites.
...
To repulse that growing online presence, the federal government aims to spend between $50,000 and $100,000 on a firm that can help in “correcting false information and dispelling myths about the Canadian seal hunt,” according to Dana Cryderman, a foreign affairs spokeswoman.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ottawa-seeks-help-with-seal-message/article1412185/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheGlobeAndMail-Front+(The+Globe+and+Mail+-+Latest+News)
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So, does this mean that the government will be using our tax dollars to pay people to post pro-sealing messages on sites like this?

[HeresyLives]

1. I don't like this 'monitoring' business.

We wouldn't have a 'bloodied reputation' if we stopped hunting seals but that aside, since when is ordinary free speech monitored and 'neutralized'?

We are not talking racist hate sites here, after all.

[daleo]

2. I agree, and the language is Orwellian

If the government wants to push a pro seal hint position, it has to be out in the open. I fear that this company will pose paid bloggers as disinterested citizens. I wonder how much of that goes on already.

[HeresyLives]

3. Well, it's become the kind of govt,

that makes you suspect everything they do. Which, in itself, is a bad sign.

[Prometheus Bound]

4. It takes just a few hourss to put all the arguments together in a persuasive manner.

And another couple of hours to prepare rebuttals of all the opposing arguments. No need to pay tens of thousands for that. So the money must be spent on the neutralising part.