A Canadian Twitter User Was Arrested for Posting Videos Harassing South Asians. Experts Say Canada’s Justice System is Not Equipped to Stop This Problem.

A woman in Chilliwack, British Columbia has been criminally charged with hate crimes following an investigation into “racially offensive social media content” amid a series of incidents targeting the city’s South Asian community.

The Chilliwack RCMP said it made the arrests following an investigation into “discriminatory and harmful” content that was posted on X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter.

According to the RCMP’s media release, the individual was arrested and released with an upcoming court date on “several recommended Criminal Code Offences”:

“On July 17, 2024 the Chilliwack RCMP received information that a user of X, formerly known as Twitter, had been posting social media content with discriminatory and harmful language. In consultation with the BC RCMP Hate Crimes Unit and with the assistance of members of the public, the Chilliwack RCMP General Investigation Support Team were able to identify the suspected user of this account. On August 7, 2024 this individual was arrested and subsequently released from police custody to appear in court at a later date on several recommended Criminal Code Offences.”

Although Chilliwack RCMP says it is not releasing the name of the individual until criminal charges are formally filed, an X user going by the pseudonym “Canadian Girl” who has engaged in behaviour echoing the description provided by the RCMP announced that she had been arrested for her tweets.

Canadian Girl, who has posted using multiple accounts that are now suspended, has been repeatedly posting videos of herself harassing South Asian drivers on local roads, often yelling racist expletives at other drivers out the window of her vehicle.

In one video obtained by PressProgress, Canadian Girl is seen filming a turbaned Sikh man from her vehicle while on the road in Chilliwack. She calls him an “invader,” a “jeet”(a racist insult often used to attack people of Indian origin online) and tells him to “go back to his f***ing country.”

Source: Canadian Girl (X.com)

In a post on X, People’s Party leader Maxime Bernier shared a link to an article about Canadian Girl’s arrest, blaming “anti-white DEI policies.”

Canadian Girl also recently appeared on a far-right podcast linked to the figures associated with the Freedom Convoy and far-right Diagolon community.

“My X is constantly getting shut down and I guess I do have feisty opinions,” Canadian Girl complains on the podcast.

According to her new accounts, Canadian Girl states that she was arrested for “public incitement of hatred,” and “wilful promotion of hatred.”

While legal experts agree there is a serious problem with the increasing spread of hate online, they are not sure Canada’s criminal justice system is best equipped to deal with the phenomenon.

Kasari Govender, British Columbia’s Human Rights Commissioner, says provincial data suggests BC’s criminal justice system has been ineffective in dealing with online hate.

“Accountability is one key piece that victims and survivors of hate are looking for and can be achieved through the criminal justice or human rights systems,” Govender told PressProgress. “However, we found that our justice systems have not been terribly effective at dealing with hate incidents.”

“While we estimate that there were about 20,000 incidents of hate between 2015 and 2021, only a handful of charges were laid and only three were convicted,” Govender pointed out.

Source: Canadian Girl (X.com)

Moira Aikenhead, a law professor who lectures at the University of British Columbia, notes police rarely enforce online hate speech cases because they are often “onerous” to prove in court.

“It’s really rare that we will see criminal charges,” Aikenhead told PressProgress.

“There is some precedent for holding people accountable for written hate speech,” Aikenhead explained. “There have been a few cases dealing with sort of in the more pre-digital age, newsletter that were, clearly virulently racist and reached broad audiences, but there’s been less confidence as dealing with social media and individuals sending out tweets or using other social media platforms to express hateful views.”

“This case is extremely important and these are harmful views that could potentially translate into real world violence.”

Canadian Girl has often posted statements inciting racist harassment and encouraging her followers to film themselves harassing South Asian individuals and post it online.

“Record and post it all so we can inspire the courage of our fellow white brethren,” Canadian Girl wrote on X.

Source: Canadian Girl (X.com)

Aikenhead adds that there is a “legislative gap” around following and filming people in public.

“That’s something that I think the courts will have to consider. They started doing that in relation to voyeurism, but in terms of people just going about their day living their lives, even though being filmed and having that posted online can potentially be extremely harmful and can reach a massive audience,” Aikenhead said.

“I think that the law is going to have to sort of adapt to the new digital reality that there’s a difference between being observed in public and being filmed in public. And so I think that that’s another area where the court and the legislators could potentially make some changes that might prevent people from engaging in the specific types of behaviors that this woman did”

In other posts, Canadian Girl has posted photos and videos of Indian children at the park or walking down the street, as well as images generated using AI in order to further villainize South Asians.

Source: Canadian Girl (X.com)

Canadian Girl also posted slurs about South Asians, telling them “mass deportations are coming,” and spreading unsubstantiated myths that immigrants are stealing jobs from Canadians.

In another video, she is seen at a Superstore in Chilliwack rubbing pork on top of the Halal food section.

Source: Canadian Girl (X.com)

Canadian Girl also continually posts praise for Hitler, as well as racist messages about Jewish people and Black people, saying they, along with “brown people,” should be “removed from Canadian lands.”

Despite the terms of her arrest including not being allowed to use the Internet, Canadian Girl has created a new Twitter account and continues to spread racist messages, saying that instead of tweeting herself, she is dictating her online posts to her husband to follow the rules of the police-imposed internet ban.

Aikenhead says that although it is important to hold individuals accountable, the criminal code is unlikely to be effective in controlling the spread of online hate speech on social media platforms.

“Obviously it will be important to go after individuals, but they’re really sort of symptoms of the problem rather than the problem itself, which I think has been created in large measure by technology companies,” Aikenhead said.

“It’s very easy to focus on individuals like this woman and that’s how our criminal code is essentially designed. Typically cases are brought against individuals and it’s a much more difficult problem to try to address to look at the broader issues of why is there this meteoric rise in online hatred?”

Canadian Girl started an online fundraiser campaign for herself, which has raised over $2,500 to date.

On her online fundraiser, Canadian Girl expressed surprise with being charged based on her belief of free expression online.

“Not only is X/Twitter a free speech platform but the Canadian charter of rights and freedoms assures us…guaranteed freedom of thought, belief and expression.”

According to Aikenhead, the federal government’s online harms legislation would increase maximum penalties for hate speech and would also create new penalties for hate speech in relation to the Canadian Human Rights act.

“They’re currently working on legislation to deal in part with this type of issue, but what’s missing from that legislation is accountability for social media companies,” Aikenhead said.

“Part of the reason these messages are able to spread so quickly and so far and gain so much traction is we have companies like X that profit off of attention and they profit off of having more and more extreme content shared to viewers and readers and having that sort of self promote and we really haven’t seen any accountability from Big Tech or for those algorithms that have caused so much harm.”

“I think we’re going to see more of this because there’s a lot more public attention to online hate and there’s also more online hate occurring. I think people like this individual are feeling very emboldened, this person’s already raised money on a GoFundMe like website and has a lot of support from her online community who see her being the person who’s being persecuted and discriminated against and targeted.”

The BC Human Rights Commissioner Kasari Govender told PressProgress that hate incidents are on the rise in BC, but the criminal justice system isn’t always the best way to address the issue.

“Accountability is one key piece that victims and survivors of hate are looking for and can be achieved through the criminal justice or human rights systems,” Govender told PressProgress in a statement.

Govender agrees social media platforms, “including Google, Meta, Reddit, Rumble, Telegram, TikTok and Twitter” need to take greater steps to minimize online hate.

The Human Rights Commissioner says these platforms need to “enforce rigorous terms of service to address hateful content,” “reform algorithms to favour less divisive, discriminatory and misleading content,” “stop placing advertisements alongside hateful content,” “allow independent audits” and “commit to timely, transparent and accurate public reporting on the frequency and nature of hateful online content.”