The mystery of YEGWAVE, Edmonton’s most controversial social media account

It has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers with videos of car crashes, crime scenes and local weirdness.

Most everyone on social media with an interest in Edmonton has an opinion on it.

Yet so little is known about YEGWAVE, the popular and often divisive “culture and entertainment” account, that when someone claimed it wasn’t even based in Canada, it struck some as plausible. 

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“YEGWAVE is run from Russia,” declared a Reddit post late last year. “An account that only posts degrading videos of homeless people and ragebait about immigrants might be a Russian troll? Can’t say I’m shocked.”

The purported evidence for the allegation was a link to a TikTok post claiming to show an undated screenshot of YEGWAVE’s Instagram “about” page, with “Russia” sitting in grey text beside the “account based in” field.

YEGWAVE quickly denied the claim. In an unsigned statement, YEGWAVE insisted it “is, and always has been, a Canadian entity, based and run out of Edmonton, Alberta.” It blamed the Russia location on its use of network tools intended to protect its closely guarded anonymity.

The episode might seem a minor social media spat were it not for YEGWAVE’s outsized role in Edmonton’s social media ecosystem. The page has 515,000 followers on Instagram and 94,000 on X. When it posts something, city councillors often hear about it. The identity of the poster (or posters) has become something of an urban legend.

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The page has also earned its share of detractors, in part for its focus on immigrants, disorder and other polarizing topics — as well as for its minimal comment moderation.

So what is the story behind YEGWAVE? And what should be made of the Russian claims?

What is YEGWAVE?

YEGWAVE’s main Instagram account launched in November 2018. It joined Twitter, now known as X, in August 2020 and also maintains a presence on TikTok.

There is little linking YEGWAVE to the non-digital world: it has not registered a trademark, and as of last year, it had not been involved any legal action in an Edmonton court. None of its accounts list an email address, and its Instagram page no longer shares what country it is based in.

YEGWAVE bills itself as the “#1 Alberta Culture & Entertainment Page.” It posts a mix of news — often from official media statements or other news sources — as well as photos and videos sent by eyewitnesses.

It has been accused of being a “news thief” and was briefly kicked off Instagram last year around the time this newspaper made a copyright complaint.

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YEGWAVE appears to have been started by high school students. Its oldest Instagram post — showing a pileup on the High Level Bridge — is from March 2020, the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. A few months later, the page celebrated reaching 20,000 followers. It posted a video with something close to a mission statement: posting news, memes and “showcasing the crackheads of Edmonton,” followed by a clip of a man with his head in a trash can.

“We started this account as a joke when quarantine just shut schools down in Alberta, and now we already have 20,000 of you,” the post reads. “Thank you guys so much for the continuous support. We are so grateful to have this platform where we can spread joy and happiness and educate you guys on the ongoing issues in the world and in Edmonton, but most importantly, bringing everyone together from our city where we can all relate and share our laughs.”

The tone, look and content of the page has shifted over time. Early posts included a contest to see which Edmonton high school would go longest without a COVID outbreak. It highlighted local rappers and other musicians. Eventually, advertising and paid promotions began to crop up on the page.

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MacEwan University journalism professor Neill Fitzpatrick credited YEGWAVE with finding ways to engage younger audiences on social media — including his journalism students, who began talking about the account a few years ago.

His introduction to the page was a student saying, “Oh, that’s the site that shows everybody fighting.”

“It seems its origins were showing people in Edmonton fighting. It didn’t have a lot of respect. However, even at that time, the students were very much aware of it.”

YEGWAVE has since become a go-to for social media users looking to share news tips, which are often posted with seemingly no verification or further research, said Fitzpatrick. Legacy newsrooms in the city — nearly all of which are barred from posting links on Meta-owned platforms like Instagram in the wake of the 2023 Online News Act — have been slow to adapt, he said.

Fitzpatrick dismissed YEGWAVE’s claim — made in its Russia statement — that its approach is providing “just the bare facts and any surrounding context.”

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“Even if they were providing some facts and context, it would be better than sometimes what they do (post),” he said. “Many of their posts that I think of are ‘As seen in West Edmonton Mall’ or something along those lines. You know, ‘We’re just throwing it out there. You guys make up your mind about what it is or what it means.’”

For many younger news consumers, however, that seems to be enough.

“They just want a few images, a few seconds of video, a couple of pictures, and then they’re on to the next story,” Fitzpatrick said.

What’s the controversy?

YEGWAVE is not without its critics.

One common complaint is how the page handles posts about immigrants. In October, YEGWAVE posted a photo of a man in a unicorn costume holding a sign reading “TOO MANY MIGRANTS!” beside a road in Sherwood Park. Another post highlighted an unspecified report claiming that students from India were using fraudulent acceptance letters. Another drew attention to a web streamer who asked “why there’s so many Indians in Canada.” Another post showed video of a woman in a coffee shop abusing the staff and asking to speak to a “white girl.”

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Displays of racism are often newsworthy. But for YEGWAVE’s critics, no incident of anti-immigrant sentiment appears too small to highlight. YEGWAVE often posts about racist harangues against immigrants, specifically South Asian people, and even shared a photo of some barely legible graffiti reading “Stop Indian Immigration.”

The page does post positive news about South Asian people, including cultural events and a donation by the Sikh community to local food banks.

Harman Singh Kandola, chairperson of the Edmonton Newcomer Centre, is among those who noticed YEGWAVE’s focus on South Asian people. However, he suspects someone behind the account is either South Asian or “adjacent to the community in some way.”

“The things they talk about within the community are things that are so insider, it just leads me to think this person’s got insight very few people outside the community would have,” he said.

While similar accounts like Toronto’s 6ixBuzz have been criticized for posting content to stir up racist comments, Kandola feels YEGWAVE has been less problematic.

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“I think they’ve skirted this a little bit better so far.”

Others have accused YEGWAVE of exploiting homeless people and drug users for content. One of YEGWAVE’s most popular posts shows a group of people, apparently high on drugs, bent double in an Edmonton transit station, their belongings strewn about. Others show people experiencing mental health crises or using drugs in public — the ethics of which are debated in journalism and social science circles.

One post showed a man apparently attempting suicide in front of an LRT train.

“Bro was screaming, ‘I don’t want my life anymore, take it’ and the train kept honking at him,’” the caption reads, followed by the crying laughing emoji.

Among those who take issue with YEGWAVE is Edmonton Coun. Michael Janz, who said its content ranges “from sensationalism to poverty porn.”

Its impact, however, is real. When contacted in March, Janz was looking into a YEGWAVE post purporting to show someone having sex in a DATS bus.

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“Certainly when they post something, it does get sent and shared to elected officials,” he said. “The problem is there’s often no context, there’s no timeline. You don’t know, say, whether a picture of something that happened on transit was this week, this month, or last year.”

He also worried YEGWAVE’s penchant for videos of fights and dangerous driving could contribute to dangerous activities.

“There’s this culture of, ‘Get it for YEGWAVE, film it,’” he said.

In its statement addressing the Russia allegations, YEGWAVE said it never tries “to portray or push certain narratives.”

“We do not, nor will we ever, condone hatred or racism,” it said.

YEGWAVE defended its largely hands-off approach to comments, saying it “supports free speech” but monitors and removes “explicit” hate content.

“To those raising concerns, we pose this question: why are you more concerned about the platform where these comments are posted, rather than about the individuals posting them?” it added. “If you see racism in our comments, that is not an indictment of our account but rather a reflection of certain Albertans.”

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Lincoln Ho, a content creator who runs the local events page Yegventures on Instagram, disagrees with the approach.

“If they have as big of a team as they supposedly have, somebody should be filtering those comments or at least hiding those comments,” he said. “If they’re racist, hide it. If they’re hateful to somebody, homophobic or whatever, hide those comments to stop perpetuating more of these comments.”

Ho was among those who took a screenshot of YEGWAVE’s about page when its location was set to Russia in 2021.

What does this have to do with Russia?

Russia’s use of social media to wage covert “information warfare” against western democracies is well documented. According to the Government of Canada, Russian government-backed groups are active on social networks in Canada, the U.S. and Europe and aim to “build support for its domestic and foreign policy objectives, promote its influence around the world, and discredit its critics.” The aim is to drive polarization, undermine trust in institutions and lead people to question liberal democracy.

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The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a U.K.-based research organization that monitors information operations, said such campaigns usually involve a “strategy of mixing neutral news and entertainment with deliberate falsehoods and polarizing messaging.”

YEGWAVE responded to the Russia allegations on Dec. 1, 2024.

“The screenshot circulating that claims our account is run in Russia, along with the comments that suggest we ‘quickly hid it’ are unequivocally false.”

The account said its location has been unlisted “for years” and that the 2021 location was “due to the use of a location spoofer and VPN (virtual private network), which we utilize to protect our privacy.”

The account said it would continue to post anonymously for reasons of “personal safety.”

“In the early days of our account, we received a number of threats, and as the account has grown, so too have these threats, both in number and severity. We do not wish to compromise our safety, and anonymity is the most simple and least costly way to achieve this.”

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YEGWAVE occasionally posts about Russia’s war in Ukraine — unsurprising, given the Edmonton area’s strong Ukrainian ties. A post last year about Canadian aid to Ukraine suggests that those engaging with YEGWAVE content are offside with the general public. The post included an interactive poll in which nearly 84 per cent of respondents said Canada should stop supplying aid to Ukraine. Professional polling shows nearly the opposite, with more than 70 per cent of Canadians supporting continued support for the embattled country.

Ho does not believe the current owner of YEGWAVE is based outside Canada, but said it is not unusual for popular accounts to quietly change hands, sometimes for cash.

He also pointed to similarly branded accounts in Vancouver and Calgary, suggesting the owners have attempted to start or join a conglomerate.

Ho doubts YEGWAVE makes any significant money, noting that with the exception of a few paid posts, it currently has relatively little advertising. (In an anonymous 2022 interview, one of YEGWAVE’s founders told Urban Affairs magazine the page was never intended to make money and had no business plan beyond the occasional promotional post.)

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Marcus Kolga, director of the Canadian foreign disinformation monitoring platform DisinfoWatch, said there is “no present evidence” linking YEGWAVE to “any Russian entity.”

However, he encouraged people to be skeptical when consuming information online, especially when it comes from anonymous sources.

“Users who engage with any accounts that hide their location and/or do not disclose who their owners are, should bear this in mind and use appropriate caution when engaging with such accounts,” he said in an email.

The ISD noted YEGWAVE has almost no presence outside the platforms on which it operates, making it “significantly more difficult to investigate the account ownership and other details.”

Several factors suggest the posters are local to Edmonton, including the timing of posts and the presence of local advertising.

“The accounts have run sponsored posts for local businesses and malls, a (behaviour) uncommon for typical state-backed disinformation efforts, which rarely pursue commercial partnerships,” the institute said in a statement.

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The institute’s research team, however, was puzzled by YEGWAVE’s VPN claims.

“The claim that a VPN caused Instagram to display a Russian location is technically unlikely. A lot of major VPN providers do not offer Russian servers due to current geopolitical restrictions.”

The ISD added: “They claim to use a location spoofer and a VPN for further privacy protection. For a local news outlet, this kind of privacy protection seems unusual.”

Nevertheless, for many of Fitzpatrick’s students, YEGWAVE is a top news source. While he’s concerned about the lack of transparency, he’s not sure the majority of YEGWAVE’s audience cares.

“I wouldn’t go as far as calling it journalism, but I do think it is presenting news to us, not in a traditional way,” he said.

As for the mystery around the account: “I think that for whatever reason, they’re enjoying this anonymity,” he said. “Keeping people guessing.”

Postmedia reached out to YEGWAVE for comment but did not receive a response to its questions.

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jwakefield@postmedia.com

x.com/jonnywakefield 

@jonnywakefield.bsky.social

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