Canadians Made A Facebook Protest Group About Justin Trudeau And It's Full Of Death Threats
This article was originally published on January 10, 2019.
Opinions of Canada's Prime Minister have always been mixed, but now a Yellow Vest Canada Facebook group is making death threats against Justin Trudeau. The group, which has over 100,000 members is dedicated completely to hating on Trudeau and the Liberals. Some of the comments and posts from the group are completely horrifying.
There are a number of posts within the group calling out Justin Trudeau on his policies and political decisions and inviting people to form gather and protest across the country. There is nothing wrong with this. In fact, it's people's democratic right to have their own opinions, dislike our leader, and speak out peacefully against things they don't agree with.
The problem with this group is that those posts are becoming laced with violent suggestions as well as blatant homophobia, sexism, racism, and other hate. Multiple comments in the group have also called for Justin Trudeau's death, saying he deserves to be shot or even saying that he should be hung publicly, and the person who kills him would be a national hero.
The volume of violent comments and death threats has gotten so extreme that Facebook is now investigating them. The platform has a policy against harassment and hate speech and will remove any pages, groups, or accounts that are in violation of those policies. Just recently, Facebook shut down similar Yellow Vest pages in the UK.
Facebook administrators aren't the only ones taking note of the violent comments and death threats. A Twitter account under the name Yellow Vests Canada Exposed has also been compiling the numerous threats made on their page.
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The user has regularly been following the group and using their Twitter account to expose not only the death threats made but also anyone who has encouraged violence against Justin Trudeau and anyone who likes the comments as well.
A threat made towards @JustinTrudeau in response to the @globalnewshttps://t.co/MP72UaVGK0 article in #yellowvestscanada@facebook group. @facebook needs to shut them down.@rcmpgrcpolice@csiscanada@CBCNews@TorontoStar@vicecanada@CTVNews@OttawaCitizen@rabblecapic.twitter.com/pfbGmXsJjT
This guy in the #YellowVestCanada@facebook advocating shooting @JustinTrudeau during a town hall in Regina. @rcmp@CTVNews@TorontoStar@CBCNews@vicecanadapic.twitter.com/TqaHhtyYVS
Among the threats posted, one person said they pray that Trudeau will be assassinated like John F Kennedy was, several have said that he needs too take a bullet or be shot, finally some have excused him of treason and say he should be hanged for it.
The account also regularly highlights comments that are sexists, racist, homophobic and otherwise hateful.
This was in response to a photo of @JustinTrudeau found in the main #YellowVestCanada group. pic.twitter.com/9r9TZNNe7i
The Yellow Vests Canada Exposed account not only exposes the posts online but also regularly tags the RCMP and other security agencies in their posts in hopes of encouraging legal action against the group.
The RCMP confirmed that they are aware of the Facebook group and the threats made against the Prime Minister and that they take all threats very seriously.
