Johnny Au
Senior Member
Here is another controversial ad (but was removed before it was in circulation):
http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2013/08/30/controversial_middle_east_ad_pitched_to_ttc.html
Note that Mihevc is concerned about violence on advertisements (yet, oddly enough, he is not concerned about the advertising of a violent video game on the sides of buses and streetcars, as the ad itself does not condone violence (but the game itself does and prides itself for it, hence the controversy, especially south of the border)).
http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2013/08/30/controversial_middle_east_ad_pitched_to_ttc.html
This one is political.Paul Moloney said:Controversial Middle East ad pitched to TTC
Martha Roth, of the Palestine Awareness Coalition, stands near an ad paid for by the coalition depicting the territory of Palestine shrinking into the state of Israel, at a Canada Line commuter train station in downtown Vancouver, on Wednesday August 28, 2013.
An ad campaign about Israel and the Palestinian territories is being proposed to run on the Toronto Transit Commission.
The TTC says it will review whether to accept the advertising, submitted by a Montreal-based group called Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East.
The message is similar to a controversial ad campaign on Vancouver’s transit system from the Palestine Awareness Coalition, said Grace Batchoun, of the Montreal group.
The images displayed in Vancouver, which have drawn protests from Jewish advocacy groups like B’nai Brith, are intended to show the steady occupation of Palestinian territory by Israel.
“The goal is to increase awareness of the problem in the minds of the general public and hope they will think about it, the problem being the ongoing Israeli occupation of what are called the occupied territories,” Batchoun said.
When the Star requested a copy of the Montreal group’s proposed ad, the organization’s president, Thomas Woodley, responded that it was not naming the cities where it hoped to advertise.
“We are planning to run ads relating to Israel-Palestine in at least two Canadian cities but we haven’t publicly revealed where we’re planning to do so,” Woodley said.
B’nai Brith Canada argues the Palestine Awareness Coalition advertisement should be rejected in Vancouver because its transit system, Translink, has a policy that ads should not denigrate a group.
“This is derogatory against Israel and people who support Israel,” said B’nai Brith spokesman Sam Eskenasi, adding the group has received emails expressing the hope that a similar ad doesn’t show up on the TTC.
Under TTC policy, if at least five people complain about an approved ad, the issue goes to its advertising review committee, made up of commissioners.
Councillor John Parker, a committee member, said he expects people would complain if an ad appeared on the TTC similar to the one in Vancouver.
“I would say that (Vancouver) ad strikes me as provocative,” Parker said. “I would want to give it a thorough review before I could give it approval.”
Councillor Joe Mihevc, who served for several years on the advertising review committee, said an ad could be rejected if two of the three committee members opposed it.
Mihevc said most of the controversial advertising he dealt with centred on nudity or violence, as opposed to politics. The committee would assess whether the material met community standards of acceptability.
“They’re all tricky to deal with because there is such a thing as a community standard but it shifts — what it was 10 years ago is different from today,” he said.
“It’s about judgment. We value freedom of expression and political thought, yet at the same time we uphold community standards. We should not be offending the community but we also should not be restricting expression.”
Note that Mihevc is concerned about violence on advertisements (yet, oddly enough, he is not concerned about the advertising of a violent video game on the sides of buses and streetcars, as the ad itself does not condone violence (but the game itself does and prides itself for it, hence the controversy, especially south of the border)).
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