The parody Twitter account Y̷o̷u̷r̷e 1 Carleton (@YourCarleton) recently came back online and changed their profile picture to reflect the 2017 Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) executive candidates, One Carleton.
The page was created in Jan. 2015 to mock the existing CUSA executives, the Your Carleton slate. Their first tweet on Jan. 22 said, “Vote for Your Carleton! Or don’t. We stacked the electoral board, so it doesn’t matter! #CUSAelections.”
Current CUSA president Fahd Alhattab said that accounts like these come out year after year, and there aren’t many guidelines for how CUSA should respond to them.
“We do not engage in negative campaigning,” he said.
The account regularly criticized the Your Carleton CUSA executives on issues such as high tuition prices, executive salaries, and the “I’m Gunna Vote” video, which was eventually taken down by CUSA after backlash from students.
Janice Tibbets, a journalism professor at Carleton, said although she doesn’t know how common these types of accounts are, they can often have a large impact.
“They typically receive a lot of attention for saying outlandish things,” she said.
Alhattab said he believes there’s a difference between satire that exists for entertainment purposes and this account.
“This isn’t appreciated because it’s satirical and it’s attacking a brand and a people,” Alhattab said.
He stressed that he doesn’t think students should be immediately critical of the new One Carleton brand just because there’s some relation to the previous executives.
“When there’s new leadership and there’s new executives, things change . . . just because there is a returning executive, just because there are ties to before, doesn’t mean there isn’t something new to offer.”
Alhattab said he believes accounts such as these have a negative impact on the election by spreading misinformation, and credits lack of trust between students and CUSA to accounts like @YourCarleton.
“All the negative tweet . . . it’s not only taking away a bit from the teams, it’s destroying our student association.”
In his opinion, Alhattab said the damage caused by satirical accounts affects the Carleton community as a whole. He added, “It’s disappointing if there’s any student that takes the account seriously.”
Tibbets said such accounts are potentially dangerous because even if discredited, users will always remember the claims that were made against the group being attacked. She warned that such accounts should always be taken with “a very big block of salt.”
The Charlatan made contact through Twitter direct message with the person in charge of the account, but they declined to comment, saying it was “too risky”. Subsequent messages to the account have not been returned.
