People’s Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier had his Twitter account frozen for 12 hours after tweeting the emails of three journalists and directing his followers to “play dirty.”
But now, one expert says the tweet didn’t just circulate on Twitter, and it found its way into a chatroom he said represents “a youth white supremacist group,” too.
“When Bernier put out his message to ‘play dirty’ with these journalists and put up their emails … that message was received immediately by white supremacists,” said Evan Balgord, executive director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network.
In a tweet Wednesday, Bernier called three journalists from mainstream news outlets, including Global News, “idiots” and listed their emails, writing: “They want to play dirty, we will play dirty too.”
He encouraged his 160,000 followers to contact the reporters, posting excerpts of their requests for comment after Monday’s federal election.
“(T)ell them what you think of their disgusting smear jobs,” Bernier wrote.
Global News contacted Bernier’s team to ask for his reaction to the disciplinary action taken against his Twitter account, as well as to his tweet appearing in reportedly white supremacist chat groups. His team did not respond to multiple emails.
In a screenshot Balgord shared with Global News, users on the messenger service Telegram could be seen discussing the contact information Bernier had shared. They also speculated about the reporters’ religions.
In another, separate screenshot, users in a discord chat celebrated Bernier’s decision to share the emails. That group, according to Balgord, is a “youth white supremacist group.”
“Find me another political leader doxxing journos kek,” said one user.
“We’ve got his back he has ours it seems.”
Multiple journalism associations came together to call out Bernier’s tweet. Canadian Journalists for Free Expression condemned it as an “attempt to intimidate and punish journalists.” The Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) also called it “unacceptable and dangerous.”
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Twitter ultimately took down Bernier’s tweets, but not until a number of users made note of the contact information. The tweet set off a torrent of hateful emails that flooded the reporters’ inboxes.
One email, which a reporter shared on Twitter, made multiple aggressive threats.
“I hope that all propagandists like you get brutally raped before being lynched and strung up,” it read.
“Remember, kill yourself before the enemy.”
CAJ president Brent Jolly said his “jaw hit the floor” when he saw Bernier’s tweet.
“Just because you don’t agree with what’s being written … it doesn’t mean you can completely try and burn democracy to the ground. Because, I hate to break it to them, journalists have been here for a long time and we’re going to be here,” Jolly said.
“We’re not going to go quietly into the night. This is something that we’re going to be here for and we’re going to push back.”
Social media platforms have a major responsibility to step in when this sort of thing happens, according to Barbara Perry, who is the director of the Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism at Ontario Tech University.
“There is absolutely a responsibility on the part of social media companies to do what they can to condemn that sort of speech,” she said.
“And if it’s putting him in what people call a ‘Twitter jail’ for some period of time, that’s a very good start. You know, he is not immune.”
Twitter froze Bernier’s account for 12 hours, the minimum duration of that kind of “enforcement action” that Twitter can undertake.
“If it seems like an otherwise healthy account is in the middle of an abusive episode, we might temporarily make their account read-only, limiting their ability to Tweet, Retweet, or Like content until calmer heads prevail,” a spokesperson for Twitter said in a statement sent to Global News.
“When an account is in read-only mode, others will still be able to see and engage with the account. The duration of this enforcement action can range from 12 hours to 7 days, depending on the nature of the violation.”
But even though Bernier received the lighter end of the possible sentences from Twitter, Perry warned that these kinds of threats can have real consequences.
“If unchecked, it can escalate. It has that capacity to escalate,” she said.
“If we don’t check the language, it does easily (and) can very easily escalate, then to lead to action — including various forms of violence, whether it’s hate crime or whether it’s directed attacks at individuals.”
Balgord added that Bernier could distance himself from these white supremacist groups “if he wanted to.”
“He could do a hell of a lot more to keep that stuff out if he wanted to,” Balgord said.
“I don’t think he wants to.”
–with files from The Canadian Press
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