The trial of the Freedom Convoy organizers continues to review social media clips for admissibility — Wednesday’s footage showed how legacy media got the demonstration wrong. .Tamara Lich and Chris Barber are in the courtroom for their seventh day on trial for charges of mischief, intimidation, obstruction and counselling the same offences not committed. .Crown witness Sgt. Joanne Pilotte was on the stand again, presenting Facebook footage from various press conferences in February 2022..The theme of one of the pressers in the voir dire (trial within a trial on the admissibility of evidence) in court Wednesday was scrutinizing the role the mainstream media played in portraying the demonstrators as fringe extremists. .In a video, Keith Wilson, former convoy lawyer, cited section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees freedom of expression and talked about “the notion that there's a siege here.”.“Come down and see for yourself, because what you see on legacy media has no correlation to what's happening on the ground here whatsoever.”.“The only blockade I’ve experienced is police vehicles,” someone in the room said. .“I don’t understand why police are blocking the streets the way they are,” Wilson responded. .He emphasized though other countries have put in place a vaccine mandate for truckers, legal validity of the mandate had to be “determined by Canadian courts.” .The video footage also showed Benjamin Dichter, one of the convoy organizers, calling government-funded media “fake media,” and said they weren’t allowed in the press conference for “pushing you around.”.“They have no credibility,” he said. “That's why they're not here.”.“We need to stop this move to centralization of everything.”.Dichter said the morale on the ground has not changed, and he had seen friendships between the truckers from across the country develop, despite language barriers. .“This is what Canada is supposed to be about,” he said. “We're at this amazing moment where all the baggage is being left behind and everyone is becoming Canadian.”.Tom Quiggin, who worked with the protestors in an intelligence capability, added the protest is an opportunity for “independent media to usurp the corporate media.”.“What we're seeing in the legacy media has no bearing on what's happening [at the Freedom Convoy],” he said. “There is no violence, here. There is no insurrection. There is no threat to [the established governmental order].”.The Crown spent the majority of the trial so far reviewing hours of Facebook footage, of which the judge deemed only 11 posts applicable. .“The Crown is now saying when it comes to the Facebook posts, they will only rely on the 11 posts that are directly attributed to or signed by Lich,” Matthew Horwood tweeted. “She was one of the organizers with posting privileges on Facebook, but it's unclear who exactly typed out many of the posts.”.“The defence would prefer to deal with the cross of Pilotte after the ruling on the Facebook posts,” The Democracy Fund tweeted. “The Court would prefer to cross the officer and dispense with her evidence now.”.The court then proceeded to view TikTok footage presented by the defence. It was filmed prior to the convoy, before and while the truckers travelled across Canada on their way to Ottawa. “This convoy to Ottawa next week on Sunday is a peaceful protest," Barber said in a January 2022 video. “Anybody that joins this protest, or this convoy, from either coast to coast, is to adhere to the rules of the convoy, and I am dead serious.” He said that if anyone “f**cks with” the rules, they would be thrown out, and that everyone should adhere to emergency vehicles, especially when lights flashing. “[Give them the] utmost attention,” Barber said. “Right now the public is 100% on the truckers and the removal of mandates' side. We do not want to lose that. When we start acting like assholes, we lose that.”“Let's keep our eyes on the prize and hit the federal government where it hurts,” he continued. “We want the mandates gone. The mandates need to be removed and we're not leaving until they are.”When the Freedom Convoy entered Thunder Bay, Barber released another video on his TikTok — this time he addressed prime minister Justin Trudeau and his January 26comments about the “radical fringe” or protestors who do not represent the majority of Canadians. “Barber questions why the Ontario Provincial Police is escorting the convoy to Ottawa and ‘helping out’ if they are radical and fringe,” Horwood tweeted. The defence lawyers asked Crown witness Pilotte, who was still on the stand at the time, “if she viewed and downloaded the previous two videos. She answers that she did not, but she also did not view the entirety of Barber's TikTok account,” Horwood tweeted from the courthouse. Upon the convoy’s arrival in Ottawa, Barber released another TikTok video where he encouraged everyone to remain peaceful, and once more once he got to his hotel room at night. “Look at all these peaceful trucks out here,” Barber said in the video. “And yeah, we're getting them all straight. They're not honking at 3:00 in the f**king morning anymore, which is nice guys. I appreciate that. It's called compromise and we're doing super good with it.”Citing his greatest feat to be a “January 6 style insurrection in Parliament, he reminded protestors again “we need to make sure it's peaceful, period. No ifs, ands, or buts. It's a powder keg.”He gave a personal updated, sharing that he hasn’t had enough sleep and he is feeling stressed. “Just a little bit of pressure sometimes, I guess,” he said. “Tamara is stressed right to the nuts, too.”“Keep talking to me, tell me what your concerns are, get a hold of me. My phone rings 90% of the time, so what's a little bit more?”
