I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the things we let slide. By now, I think we’ve all found at least one person in our lives who will not let things go, even the weirdest conspiracy theories about COVID-19, and the Emergencies’ Act.

I shared an article on Facebook earlier this week about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s testimony November 25 2022 at the Public Order Emergency Commission Hearings (aka the public inquiry on the Emergency Act’s enactment) on Friday. I shared it because I like the writing; I thought it captured something of the atmosphere inside the room. I put with it a comment about loving the descriptions- because to capture imaginations in the context of a news article takes a lot of talent. Nothing political at all.

Someone came at me about what should happen now that he’s lied on the stand. I challenged them as to when he lied that day. They directed me to a French language interview given in the context of the federal election. For years Canadian politicians have had this two-pronged approach to campaigning with a slightly different message in Quebec, and that’s what was happening. The interview has no relevance to his appearance at the Commission.

I’m also a big NBA fan. I’ve followed the Kyrie Irving situation pretty close. Irving got into trouble for his promotion of an antisemitic documentary and was suspended after doubling down on it every time he had an opportunity to apologize. Irving promoted a 2018 documentary called: Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America, linked to a book of the same name. It’s full of often repeated lies that Jewish people control the media, as well as conspiracy theories denying that six million people died.

The documentary is on Amazon, whose CEO Andy Jassy says it will stay there. In statement published on Axios, he said: “Look, I’m Jewish, too. And I’m worried about antisemitism. And it’s, you know, I find several parts of that content very objectionable, but I think that you have to have principles if you’re gonna manage something as large as we do with hundreds of millions of customers.”

History is a series of facts that will make some uncomfortable. The Holocaust happened. Millions of people were targeted, and had everything taken from them, including their lives. These are facts that we know from eye-witness accounts, as well as the Nazis’ own record-keeping. But history is meeting thoroughly modern problems of the freedom of speech/ expression, and the spread of misinformation via the Internet.

I don’t engage this person on my own social media feeds because frankly, I have no time, or the energy to go back and forth with them. There is usually a yes, but what about… with the use of an example that has nothing to do with the original post. And that is my choice as an individual to generally preserve my own peace of mind. But don’t larger companies have an obligation to stop the spread of these lies, especially when there are a proven set of facts in the face of the lies?

The NBA since the pandemic has developed an activist streak. Irving is a prominent enough star, that as a corporation, the NBA should be speaking out louder on this. The 8-game suspension should be permanent. And Amazon needs take the hit, and moderate content based on such obvious untruths. We need to stop allowing lies to slide, when confronted with facts.