This is a letter I sent to the Supreme Court of Canada upon hearing this morning that they had announced their departure from the Twitter/X platform.
CC: Speaker Greg Fergus, House Clerk Janse, Senate Clerk Greffiere, Senator Paula Simons, MP Gord Johns
Dear Right Honourable Chief Justice Wagner, Honourable Justices, Supreme Court Officials and Staff,
This letter servers two purposes:
1) To congratulate you on your decision to remove yourself from the Twitter/X platform.
2) To implore you to create your own independent social media platform for your Canadian and international audience using Mastodon or compatible open social web software.
Corporate social media platforms have become fraught and dangerous. As you have demonstrated, the communication medium you choose is an extension of your own values and integrity because, as Canadian media philosopher and thinker Marshall McLuhan famously said, “the medium is the message”.
The question before you now is what best way to communicate with the Canadian people. Your messaging indicates you will be using “LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Youtube”.
I will not take up more of your time with criticisms of each of these, except to briefly and rhetorically ask: of these, which are Canadian? Which allow you full control of your message at all times? Which ones are independent of any political or other influence that could manipulate your message either directly or indirectly?
The answer, unfortunately, is none of them. Furthermore, only Youtube allows for public access to your content without demanding an account.
If the Supreme Court values its independence from outside agents or actors and the independence of Canadians to be able to access your content at all times without restriction, I ask you to use the technology available today to create your own social media platform.
In 2024, I initiated e-Petition e-4769 calling on the Government “to enact policy and dedicate budgetary resources to enable the Parliament of Canada to provide an open, trusted, federated, social media presence for use by all members, senators, officers and other employees of Parliament as appropriate for communication to all Canadians.” The response from Parliamentary Secretary Lamoureux was instructive and emphasized the independence of the various bodies within the Federal structure of Canada. The Supreme Court is one of those bodies which must decide how to communicate with Canadians.
This is not a huge technological endeavour. The expertise required for the safe and secure operation of, for example a “Mastodon” server is not unique, unattainable, or expensive. I personally have full control over my own social media platform… running on an old computer literally under my basement stairs… I have 3500 followers (only 10 times less than your X account), I am connected to millions of Canadians and the world, and all at near zero cost. Of course the Supreme Court of Canada will have different requirements than a single citizen, but I give you this example because in the end, you will likely only have a handful of public-facing accounts, requiring very little in the way of maintenance and moderation of content.
What you gain, however, is significant.
Consider this scenario:
The Supreme Court of Canada uses the domain social.scc-csc.ca. Canadians can go to see your posts immediately without restriction and you gain:
1) True independence of your message. Your message is not filtered, or manipulated by an outside entity or corporation. It emanates first and foremost from your own server and can be accessed online by Canadians through any web browser or freely available apps for mobile devices.
2) Trust of Canadians. They see the ’scc-csc-.ca’ domain and immediately know and trust the source.
3) Full control of your networks, data and information. You can independently manage the storage and security of your data, as you do for any other web, email or data, to ensure it complies with the laws and expectations of Canada and Canadians.
I hope this letter helps to persuade the Court, and other independent Federal bodies to create this important communications infrastructure.
Perhaps the attached screenshots would be your first post on your new @SCC_eng@social.scc-csc.ca and @CSC_fra@social.scc-csc.ca accounts.
Sincerely
Chris Alemany
