A young woman with enviable dark lashes looks straight into the camera, holds a pink lash curler and offers her viewers a makeup tutorial.
“Hi guys, I’m going to teach you how to get long lashes,” says Feroza Aziz.
But the TikTok video includes a plot twist.
“So, the first thing you need to do is grab your lash curler, curl your lashes, obviously. Then, you’re going to put [it] down and use your phone that you’re using right now to search up what’s happening in China,” Aziz says. “They’re getting concentration camps, throwing innocent Muslims in there.”
Aziz, 19, is referring to the reported internment of Uyghur Muslims in China. The video summarizes some of the alleged human rights violations China has committed against Uyghurs, and Aziz tells her viewers to spread awareness about the issue.
#GRWM for a story I’m working on for The National
CBC’s Anya Zoledziowski demonstrates how activists use trends, like the get-ready-with-me (GRWM) video, and other creative techniques to circumvent social media censors they say throttle the reach of their messaging.
She disguised her activism in a makeup tutorial in order to attract viewers. And it worked: in two years, the video has amassed more than three million views on TikTok. (CBC News previously reported that the platform had temporarily removed the video for political reasons, but ultimately reinstated it.)
Aziz’s reel was also circulated across other platforms, including X.
Aziz isn’t the only social media influencer relying on trending hashtags and video formats across social media platforms to discuss otherwise serious issues such as war, LGBTQ rights and abortion access. In fact, it’s become a popular strategy to entice people to watch political content they might not otherwise see.
Bait and switch
In another TikTok example, Emira D’Spain, the first Black transgender woman to walk in a Victoria’s Secret fashion show, stares into the camera and says, “I’m in the middle of filming a ‘get ready with me,’ but I also want to tell you about a really important charity I’m working with for Pride.”
Brianna Wiens, a professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario who studies online activism, says this politicized influencer trend is all about ‘using the thing that’s already popular and then using that popularity to redirect [attention].’ (Perlita Stroh/CBC)
D’Spain then explains that she is raising money for the Marsha P. Johnson Institute, an advocacy group for Black trans people, and tells viewers how they can pitch in.
Brianna Wiens, an English professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario who studies online activism, says this bait-and-switch technique is all about “using the thing that’s already popular and then using that popularity to redirect [attention].”
Valeria Shashenok, a 22-year-old woman living in Ukraine, makes “day in the life” reels — a popular trend that takes viewers through a content creator’s typical day — to share tongue-in-cheek content about the war.
“It’s the most clever way to spread information,” she said over Zoom from the city of Chernihiv.
Capitalizing on trends
Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Shashenok posted a TikTok reel with a caption reading, “My Typical Day in a Bomb Shelter.” In it, viewers are introduced to Shashenok’s parents and dog in their bunker, as well as the wreckage above ground.
It has been viewed 51.8 million times.
“I like videos … like, ‘my daily routine in Mariupol now that it’s occupied,'” Shashenok said, referring to the Ukrainian coastal city occupied by Russia. “That’s so interesting.”
A similar vlog posted by creator @anat.international and viewed almost 400,000 times offers a day in the life in Gaza.
“Unfortunately, it’s not a very pretty, relaxing influencer ‘day in the life,'” the narrator says.
Politically motivated influencers have also woven their activism into viral content about the Barbie movie as well as trending dances and recipes.
How trans content creators are fighting back against hate online
Canadian transgender content creators say simply being active on social media makes them targets for hate and trolling. Still, Fae Johnstone and Lauren Sundstrom are adamant that it won’t stop them from posting.
Evading restrictions
At times, influencers have to creatively package their content so it gets around restrictions set by the individual social media platforms.
TikTok and Meta (which owns Facebook and Instagram) ban content considered inappropriate, including sexually explicit content and graphic images. That can make it difficult to post about difficult themes such as abortion and war.
Multiple human rights groups have alsowarned that Meta has stifled pro-Palestine content since the war in Gaza broke out in October. CBC News also found isolated incidents of Israelis alleging that platforms have silenced them.
“There is no truth to the suggestion that we are deliberately suppressing voices,” a Meta spokesperson told CBC News in an email.
Teen fact checkers take on fake TikTok posts
An elite teen squad of fact checkers with the help of media literacy organizations are learning to suss out scams and fake information on TikTok, making videos to teach other teens about misinformation online.
Joey Siu, a pro-democracy activist from Hong Kong currently living in exile in the U.S., says she and her colleagues stay off TikTok because they believe the Beijing-owned company restricts posts that are critical of the Chinese government.
Both platforms told CBC News their guidelines are meant to keep users safe—and that they don’t arbitrarily block content. Meta and TikTok also linked to their respective community guidelines.
“Our principles are centered on balancing expression with harm prevention, embracing human dignity and ensuring our actions are fair,” says TikTok’s community guidelines site.
Some activists maintain some of their content has been “shadowbanned” — that is, put into a kind of invisible mode where only they, and not their audience, can see the content they post.
‘A chilling effect’
Creators have to be strategic so they can get their content in front of as many viewers as possible, said Deja Foxx, a digital strategist based in Arizona who worked on U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris’s Democratic nomination campaign in 2020.
Deja Foxx is a digital strategist based in Arizona who worked on U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris’s Democratic nomination campaign in 2020. (deja_foxx/TikTok)
Foxx, who posts a lot of content about reproductive justice, says she believes users who disagree with her posts have taken advantage of TikTok’s algorithm to flag her content.
She said shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion decision in June 2022, “I had all of these complaints from TikTok the app, flagging my videos for things like grooming, for things like the sale of illegal goods — when the content I had made was about reproductive care.”
She said “it really had a chilling effect on what I was able to make and create and share at a time when people needed that information more than ever.”
That hasn’t stopped her and other influencers from getting creative in order to circumvent censors, real or perceived. Foxx says she will use a zero and an exclamation mark to replace the letters “o” and “i” in her TikTok reels. (Think “ab0rt!on” instead of “abortion.”)
The point is to fly under the algorithm’s radar.
Duets and ‘hashbaiting’
Wiens has found other tactics that allow influencers to keep producing this content, including “duets.”
In a duet, a content creator splits the screen so that two videos play simultaneously. In the politically minded version of this trend, one clip is uncontroversial — hands making a cake, for example — while the other could be a rant about current events or a human rights crisis.
Then there’s what’s known as “hashbaiting,” in which creators post political content with unrelated but trending hashtags (e.g. #taylorswift and #GRWM) to confuse the algorithm and get their posts in front of more viewers.
Wiens says these tactics seem to be working in bringing political issues to the fore on social media.
According to Reach3, a market research consultancy, 77 per cent of TikTok users say the platform helps them stay up-to-date on politics and social justice. The same report found more than one-quarter of TikTok users attended a Black Lives Matter rally in person, compared to only 13 per cent of non-users.
Online activism is “one part of the kind of protest rhetoric that we see in the protest action — social media is a key way for learning more,” said Wiens, who admitted she enjoys a lot of this sneaky content herself.
She said her favourite trend across social media is the “girlhood aesthetic.”
“They’re drawing people into their TikToks by saying, ‘Let’s talk about the bare face trend,’ and then say, ‘Now that I’ve got your attention, we riot at midnight.'”
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
