(image proudly used by group founder Kevin Dockery)

Hate Mirror is an educational tool.  It is a study of the over 2,000 comments made in just over a year by a group of people in the Cornwall Ontario area who targeted area businesses, politicians, and ultimately media outlets that they did not agree with.

It offers no commentary or judgement; simply a searchable collection of quotations and images used by those that we are studying and documenting.

The group included criminals, a former Liberal MPP, the editor of TC Media’s Seaway News, and many others from many walks of life.

Racism, intolerance, threats against business, against beloved family pets, injurious falsehoods in a conspiratorial manner at times.  Mostly repeated abuse targeted at their victim of choice.

For the few brave that raised their voices against them or simply asking questions attacks would follow; some directed clearly at their employment or business.

That local police refused to lay any charges against this group is boggling.

That facebook, the place where they congregated the most only took one of their groups down and only gave a few minor suspensions when those people clearly repeated again, and again is more boggling.

No claim of ownership is made of any of the content published.  It simply is a collection of quotes of the words and images that these people freely chose to express themselves in the hateful manner that they chose for themselves.

1. A hate group is an organized group or movement that advocates and practices hatred, hostility, or violence towards members of a race, ethnicity, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation or any other designated sector of society.

Hater:

Hater (Haters) is a derogatory term which refers to a person or group who expresses hatred in public forums, especially those found on the World Wide Web such asYouTube.^[1]

Haters are distinguished from trolls who seek to attract attention by making provocative comments.^[2] Anyone can be a victim of a hater’s actions but celebrities and other public figures are normally the main target for the hate speech. The comments that a hater may post may be seen as an act of cyberbullying and online harassment (see Computer crime) as they can be aggressive or offensive.

The seven stage model of hate crime developed by Schafer and Navarro for the FBI may explain their behaviour:^[8][9]

1. The hater finds other users with similar views to form a group
2. The group develops symbols and rituals to identify itself
3. The group shares its views to bond itself
4. The target is taunted
5. The target is attacked
6. The target is attacked with weapons
7. The target is destroyed

Researcher Sabina Low has found that there’s a correlation between the amount of parental supervision a teenager has and the likeliness that they are in committing a cyber-bullying offense.^[10] Parent’s lack of knowledge towards what their teenagers do online may be one of the sole causes of teenagers posting hateful content as they believe that they aren’t being monitored so they won’t get punished for it.

Anonymity is believed to be a major factor in the cause of a hater’s actions because it allows the hater to avoid physical confrontation with the victim so it means that they won’t need as much courage as it’s all done behind a computer screen within the safety of a their house.^[11][12] With the capability on being able to comment on public forums, haters may possibly offend people who they don’t even know such as celebrities. Celebrities are often targets of haters as they tend to feel a distance between themselves and their target even though these celebrities may be the only ones in control of their account and read all the messages that are sent towards them, just like a normal user.

 

And the definition of Criminal Harassment in the Criminal Code of Canada

 

• 264. (1) No person shall, without lawful authority and knowing that another person is harassed or recklessly as to whether the other person is harassed, engage in conduct referred to in subsection (2) that causes that other person reasonably, in all the circumstances, to fear for their safety or the safety of anyone known to them.

• Marginal note:Prohibited conduct

  (2) The conduct mentioned in subsection (1) consists of

  • (a) repeatedly following from place to place the other person or anyone known to them;

  • (b) repeatedly communicating with, either directly or indirectly, the other person or anyone known to them;

  • (c) besetting or watching the dwelling-house, or place where the other person, or anyone known to them, resides, works, carries on business or happens to be; or

  • (d) engaging in threatening conduct directed at the other person or any member of their family.

• Marginal note:Punishment

  (3) Every person who contravenes this section is guilty of

  • (a) an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years; or

  • (b) an offence punishable on summary conviction.

If you wish to ask any questions or contact us you can email info@hatemirror.com