As of Friday January 29th, 2010 a popular protest site disappeared from Facebook, called No BC HST

No BC HST

The site had over 130,000 members. The HST tax is a harmonized sales tax that would see the tax shift move from corporations to individuals, and is viewed as a tax grab for the Conservative Federal and BC Liberal Governments. It should be noted, provincially, Liberal governments tend to be right of centre

The founder of the protest group blogged about this the mysterious disappearance.

Bill Tieleman: Why did BC's biggest Facebook group disappear?

What is more interesting about Bill's blog are the comments below:

Anonymous said... A cached version is still available (albiet useless). The site was apparently taken down on 29 Jan 2010 11:29:47 GMT. Both the State University of New York and the University of Florida, among others, had their Facebook pages removed under similar circumstances. A guy by the name of Brad J. Ward from BlueFuego.com, with his inside contacts at Facebook, assisted both universities in restoring their pages. http://bluefuego.com/ You might want to try that avenue as Facebook customer assistance is basically useless.

Anonymous said... Some one is, desperately afraid, their many sins will come to light, and disgrace them, in front of the entire world. The, Olympic Games, are very near, and images, must be preserved, very much the same as the RCMP, tries to preserve their image. There is nothing beneath their dignity. They have to resort to dirty tactics, because the truth, at times, would put them in prison

Further to the idea that Olympics-era cyber-subterfuge is afoot, another Wikipedia editor just this evening (while I was commenting about the disappearance of NO BC HST on the FB anti-prorogation page) caught some blankings of critical information and reversed them: http://en.wikipedia.org/... Scroll down to the green-highlighted sections as to what had been removed. Note also the red changes in the yellow sections, which rendered the links they're in in workable...but also left a "footprint", sort of a "I was here"....does "Daws" mean anything to anyone here. I've raised the question of whether the IP user who made those deletions is an operative of a BC government agency/office, political party, consulting/p.r. company or some such similar, no replies yet. There IS a blacklist of government/corporate-related IP addresses; this appears to have been done by a proxy server, i.e. behind a mask.....

It is true with the Vancouver 2010 Olympics just days away the government is using security fears to sensor any group that may appear anti-Olympic or Anti-government.

BC has established laws against using certain signage.

CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/...

09bc-anti-olympic-sign-law-bccla.html

A proposed B.C. law would allow municipal officials to enter homes to seize unauthorized and possibly anti-Olympic signs on short notice, civil libertarians say. Violators could be fined up to $10,000 a day and jailed up to six months, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association said Friday. The proposed law was introduced Thursday as a bill to amend the Municipalities Enabling and Validating Act. The government said in a statement that the changes will "provide the municipalities of Vancouver, Richmond and Whistler with temporary enforcement powers to enable them to swiftly remove illegal signs and graffiti during the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games." Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/...

BC can force homeless people off the streets

Advocates for the homeless on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside are comparing a new law aimed at helping street people to kidnapping. Legislation passed through the B.C. legislature Nov. 17 gives police the power to take homeless people to shelters during severe weather, but cannot force them inside. The legislation was called the Assistance to Shelter Act. Advocates refer to it as the "Olympic Kidnapping Act." Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/...

So no response yet from Facebook, and no idea who deleated two protest pages, but what should be noted something is sinister is going on, and this is not just a harmless error.

We have other instances that have made Conservative governments touchy these days.

The Yes Men, sent out a phoney email saying that the Canadian government is going to take drastic action on Global Warming.

http://www.thestar.com/...

They demonstrated their ability to create a stir in December at the Copenhagen climate summit. Alongside other eco-activists, Bichlbaum and Bonanno posed as representatives of the Canadian government. Clad in black fedoras and red ties and blazers, they announced that the country would be taking more aggressive action on climate change. "Nobody benefits from a world in peril," read the phony press release from Environment Minister Jim Prentice. "Contributing to the development of other nations and taking full responsibilities for our emissions is simple Canadian good sense." The stunt forced Canada into an embarrassing denial: No, it would not implement the toughest emissions cuts in the world. And no, it would not commit $13 billion to help the world's poorest countries adapt to a warmer planet.

http://arstechnica.com/...

When corporate pranksters The Yes Men staged a December stunt against the Canadian government's emission proposals, the group had no idea that the resulting backlash would take down more than 4,000 unrelated websites. Whatever you think of the hoax, the saga is a reminder of the power of ISPs and Web hosting companies. If they don't like what you're saying and doing, there are often no consequences to shutting down or blocking sites, even when tremendous collateral damage ensues. The scenario played out in December when The Yes Men and another group called ActionAid staged a hoax aimed at the Canadian government. They put out press releases and launched official-looking websites at domain names with more than a passing similarity to their official counterparts. All of the materials said the same thing: on the eve of the international climate change shindig in Copenhagen, Canada was committing itself to the most aggressive emissions reduction targets of any country. In addition, it was willing to pay developing countries cash to compensate them for dealing with climate change. None of it was true. Canada went to Copenhagen with much more modest emissions targets, but soon found itself responding to the hoax and defending its own position on issues like the Alberta oil sands. The Environment Minister, Jim Prentice (yes, that Jim Prentice), soon had his staff blaming the hoax on the cofounder of an environmental group called Equiterre. Equiterre angrily denied the charges.

Of course another very popular website in Canada has led to the Conservatives falling in the polls and actually now trailing behind the Liberals. For more information on this the facebook group, Canadians against Prorogation see my diary here:

http://www.dailykos.com/...

Well stay tuned, something is going on here.