CLAIM: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted about the hashtag ”#TrudeauMustGo” and said his government is “committed to regulating and censoring Canadian online content.”
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Trudeau did not post such a tweet. There is no record of the post and a spokesperson from the prime minister’s office also confirmed to the Associated Press that the image of the tweet was fabricated.
THE FACTS: Twitter users who oppose Trudeau’s leadership have been posting under the hashtag #TrudeauMustGo in recent days. Some have also shared a fabricated screenshot of what appears to be a tweet from the Canadian prime minister’s official Twitter account.
“It has come to my attention that #TrudeauMustGo has been trending for more than 24 hours. This is nothing more than the work of Putin and the CPC in an effort to discredit me,” reads the tweet in the screenshot. “This is precisely why our Government has committed to regulating and censoring Canadian online content.”
One Twitter post sharing the image had more than 12,000 likes as of Tuesday. “Nice try @JustinTrudeau your lies and manipulation aren’t working anymore,” that post’s caption read. “You’ve been censoring Canadians who go against your tyrannical gov for way too long.” Other users posted the image by itself, suggesting it depicted a real tweet.
However, the image is fabricated. There is no record of Trudeau’s account posting such a tweet. The tweet also does not appear in caches of his Twitter account in recent days in archives stored by the Wayback Machine. PolitiTweet, which maintains an archive of deleted tweets from public figures, doesn’t show Trudeau has recently deleted this tweet or that he tweeted it in recent days. The last tweet that he deleted was from last month.
Cecely Roy, a spokesperson from the prime minister’s office, confirmed to the AP that the tweet in the image is not real.
People have spread fabricated social media posts attributed to Trudeau in the past. Earlier this year, as a convoy of truckers protested vaccine requirements in Ottawa, a fake Facebook post suggesting Trudeau wanted Canadians to “make life difficult” for their unvaccinated family members spread widely, the AP reported.
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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.
Tweet attributed to Canadian Prime Minister on trending hashtag is fabricated – The Associated Press – en Español
