Freeland Manipulated Media?

Here was an interesting article.

Twitter apparently marked a Tweet from Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland as "manipulating media".

It is interesting for a few reasons; firstly, it is political in nature and virtually all claims by all politicians are manipulating data, or based on manipulated data and secondly, in this case, while the recording cuts things short, I'm not sure that it is inaccurate regardless.

Honestly, I don't really care one way or another whether the Tweet is flagged or not. In fact, if anything, I think that the decision to flag it was accurate despite what I've said above. Though, if social media sites are going to be tagging such political posts, I do think that they need to do so more consistently. On the other hand, if they are being inconsistent, then I think that the bar needs to be higher.

To understand my position, you need to understand the substance of the Tweet and the media. And that substance is; Erin O'Toole claimed to support privatizing. What the supplied media leaves out is the broader explanation.

I watched the full response referred to by the interviewer who appears outraged at the video being taken out of context. But, I really do not understand the outrage. Having watched the video, he says "Yes". Then there is a MASSIVE pause. Then he goes into a VERY long winded diatribe which is much more about justifying his "yes" than it is about any specific protections for the public healthcare sector. In fact, at no point does he truly dismiss the notion of abolishing of public healthcare entirely. The full context does nothing to change or even temper that original yes.

He does speak to attempting to keep things fair and equitable. And he does mention public healthcare numerous times. But, I would say that it is reasonable based upon that interview to assume that Erin O'Toole supports the privatization of the Canadian healthcare system; in part or in full. I mean, he explicitly says that he believes that the Provinces need the freedom to be able to experiment to find what works for them. I fail to see how that excludes the possibility of even total privatization. 

The best I can argue in favour of the tagging is that the shorter clip DOES remove some context, and that O'Tooles response really only amounts to ALLOWING the Provinces to privatize. But, I don't fundamentally see the interpretation as substantively misleading. Especially not for what is CLEARLY a partisan political post.

While I agree that politicians REGULARLY bend the notion of what is being forthcoming and truthful, I simply don't think this meats any sort of bar for dishonesty or misleading news.

Hence my stance on the matter; I certainly have no issue with being informed. But don't pretend that this is some egregious twisting of words or being negligent about the context of the video. I won't say that the video reflects O'Toole's true views or even his current views. I have no way of knowing those things. But, the content of that interview constitutes a VERY strong support for allowing Canada's healthcare to be privatized and that does not contradict the claims made by the minister or her version of the media.