If you’re a Torontonian and on Twitter, you would know that Mayor David Miller is an active participant; posting comments, photos of events and his general take on life in the city. I heard him speak about his interest in social media at Mesh conference and was impressed by his passion and candour.

You may also know that the Tamil community in Toronto has been staging protests lately to draw attention to the situation in their home country. This weekend a march shut down the Don Valley Parkway.

What do these two situations have in common?

Well, on Sunday it appeared as though the Mayor wrote a politically sensitive tweet that was later retweeted.

In reality the Mayor never posted the tweet-in-question. What happened, according to TV Ontario’s The Agenda blog, was that an individual sent an ‘@’ message to the Mayor. Another person retweeted it, leaving out the original sender’s name but leaving in the impression that the Mayor had, in fact, commented. The full story is unfortunate on a number of ethical levels.

For PR people, this is yet another example of a situation we need to be aware of and monitor. And as communicators we need to make sure we don’t rely on the results of a single search, but dig deeply enough to piece together a full story before we offer clients our counsel.

Thanks to my friend Keith McDonald for sharing the TVO blog post with me.

About Martin Waxman


Martin Waxman, MCM, is a digital communications strategist. He conducts AI research, leads digital and social media training workshops and speaks at events across North America. He's co-founder of two PR agencies, president of a consultancy and has worked in the industry for nearly 30 years. Martin is a LinkedIn Learning instructor, teaches digital strategy and social media at McMaster University, the Schulich School of Business, University of Toronto SCS and Seneca College. He's a member of the Institute for Public Relations Digital Media Research Center and a past-chair of PRSA Counselors Academy. He has a Master of Communications Management (MCM) from McMaster-Syracuse Universities.