At least two recent GoFundMe campaigns based in Edmonton have been pulled offline, then reinstated without explanation, with organizers concerned that references to Iran or Iranians may have caused the U.S.-based crowdfunding platform to temporarily disable their campaigns.
Both fundraisers aimed to help families and friends of passengers of the downed Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752, which crashed outside Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Airport after it was struck by missiles launched by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard on Wednesday.
One campaign, run by the Iranian Heritage Society of Edmonton, was shut down less than six hours after the organization held a press conference on Friday announcing its fundraising to help subsidize a memorial service for the victims.
The IHSE GoFundMe link led to a “not found” page just hours after launch. (Screenshot/gofundme.com)
“It was out around six, seven hours, which was terrible for us in terms of capturing all the funds at the peak of the attention,” said Amir Ghahari, treasurer of the IHSE.
Emails provided to CBC News show around midday on Friday, GoFundMe had requested the IHSE provide additional documentation for its fundraiser including “a clear explanation of how you know the intended recipients of your campaign’s donations.”
Everyone’s telling us … if you put the word Iran then you’re going to get blocked.– Amir Ghahari, Iranian Heritage Society of Edmonton
The email stated that if a response was not given within seven days, the account would be removed. The IHSE provided CBC with emails showing the organization replied on the same day, within business hours.
Regardless, the campaign was seemingly deleted later that same evening. According to Ghahari, IHSE officials did not receive any alerts from GoFundMe to indicate the campaign was suspended, and were actually alerted that it was not accessible by a local Edmonton media outlet.
Organizers suspected the problem could be that their campaign referenced Iranians, though it was officially titled “In memory of the passengers of Flight PS752.”
“Everyone’s telling us like, if you put the word Iran then you’re going to get blocked. So we’re like, ‘OK what do we do?'” said Ghahari.
“The thing about GoFundMe is for some reason there is no help line, like a phone number that we could reach out to.”
<a href=”https://twitter.com/gofundme?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@gofundme</a> URGENT!!! Hey guys, I’m a board member of Iranian Heritage Society of Edmonton (IHSE) and respectfully request your immediate action on resolving our campaign being taken down despite providing information requested. PLEASE!!!<br>URL: <a href=”https://t.co/1qiizbSnpH”>https://t.co/1qiizbSnpH</a><a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/FlightPS752?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#FlightPS752</a>
Several hours after CBC News made inquiries with GoFundMe representatives, the campaign was restored.
An email from GoFundMe on Friday said the U.S.-based company was in touch with the campaign organizers. The Iranian Heritage Society of Edmonton said they did not hear from a company representative until early Sunday morning.
In a message timestamped 5:10 PST on Sunday, a GoFundMe “community manager” advised the IHSE that their campaign was “queued for a proactive review, but has since been cleared to raise funds” and added that funds in the account are subject to a precautionary hold until their payment processor completes a review.
Not the first time
Another Iranian-Canadian attempting to fundraise for the community in the wake of the plane crash ran into a nearly identical problem.
Shayesteh Majdnia of Edmonton launched her own GoFundMe, with similar goals to the Heritage Society, before its fundraiser had launched. Her first attempt was pulled down.
“When they took the page down, I tried every single way to put it back, but my account was totally blocked,” said Majdnia.
A former official with the Iranian Heritage Society of Edmonton herself, Majdnia had included this detail in her biography and description of the fundraiser to lend credibility.
It may have backfired.
“I did not know the real reason, but somehow I know maybe because I mentioned I was the former president of the Iranian society,” she told CBC News.
Shayesteh Majdnia said she was careful with how she referenced Iran in her GoFundMe after being blocked once before. (Screenshot/gofundme.com)
Majdnia was able to get her campaign restored by reaching out to GoFundMe media and public relations contacts — an option unavailable to the general public. Since being reactivated, her campaign has raised tens of thousands of dollars.
Is it because of sanctions?
In an email to CBC News, GoFundMe said in some cases — which the company called “rare” — sanctions can be a factor.
“In some rare cases, U.S. or Canadian sanctions will prohibit us from supporting specific campaigns,” wrote a communications manager for GoFundMe. The company also included a link to a help page titled “Raising Funds for a Beneficiary in an Unsupported Country.”
However, both the IHSE and Majdnia’s fundraiser descriptions state the funds would be used for beneficiaries in the Edmonton area.
Majdnia’s GoFundMe specifies that it would fund a memorial service in Edmonton, and an endowment fund at the University of Alberta.
“We’re not reaching outside the Edmonton area. We’re like basically helping all the families, victims, and their related family members in the Edmonton area,” said Iranian Heritage Society treasurer Amir Ghahari.
CBC test found same result
As a test, CBC News created an account on GoFundMe and prepared a fundraiser that included the words Iran, Canada, and referenced raising money for the victims “who are in Canada.” The fundraiser was never published or publicly available and the process was not completed.
CBC News received this email after creating a test fundraiser that included a reference to Iran. (Screenshot)
Within an hour, the entire account was suspended. An email was sent from GoFundMe that stated “we are writing to inform you that your GoFundMe account has been removed due to sanctions involving an unsupported country and a violation of our Terms & Conditions.”
GoFundMe hasn’t clarified
GoFundMe did not respond to specific questions about exactly what parts of the terms and conditions were violated for this experiment, or for the other Iranian-Canadian GoFundMe campaigns affected in the Edmonton area.
Under “Prohibited Content” in its terms of service, it includes “activities with, in, or involving countries, regions, governments, persons, or entities that are subject to U.S. and other economic sanctions under applicable law, unless such activities are expressly authorized by the appropriate governmental authority.”
In an email, GoFundMe explicitly stated that Iran “is not a restricted term” on its platform.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
