Canada’s right-wing rage machine vs. Nora Loreto

Content warning: rape and death threats
On the evening of April 6, a horrific highway crash occurred on Highway 35 in rural Saskatchewan. The crash would take the lives of 16 individuals on the team bus of the Humboldt Broncos hockey team.
The loss of life is tragic, and in its aftermath, there has been an enormous outpouring of support for the families, including the largest-ever GoFundMe campaign in Canadian history.
There has also been major discussion on social media of the comments of journalist Nora Loreto. (Loreto has written for Briarpatch occasionally as a freelancer since 2013.)
The tweet
Loreto’s connection to the tragedy began unremarkably enough. On April 6, the day of the crash, and on April 7, Loreto tweeted about how brutal and terrible the crash was:
Those tweets got hardly any reaction.
But the next day, on April 8, as the outpourings of support for the Humboldt Broncos community came in from around the country and around the world, Loreto posted a tweet thread that, a day or so later, would garner a huge wave of attention and outrage:
In the thread, Loreto makes clear she wanted no less for the families and survivors of the crash, who had received condolences from across the nation, and $4 million in a GoFundMe campaign by that time (it is over $11 million now).
This did not cause an immediate reaction. That would come later.
Just before this thread Loreto had tweeted that, “At least 15 people, mostly women, have been killed on Ontario alone in 2018 in cases of domestic or sexual violence.”
This got little attention. It is a simple statement of fact that those 15 deaths – and Loreto’s tweets about them – did not receive the same public response as the Humboldt crash.
Loreto, who had clearly stated the crash was a tragedy, went on to comment on the highway safety news and analysis of what led to the crash:
Loreto was clearly disturbed about how normalized the loss of life on highways is in Canada, and how this tragedy could have been prevented by better road safety:
The reaction
After these tweets, the reaction to Loreto’s earlier observation started picking up. Isolated from the rest of the thread, people began sharing the tweet “I’m trying to not get cynical about what is a totally devastating tragedy but the maleness, the youthfulness and the whiteness of the victims are, of course, playing a significant role,” and expressing their anger at the decontextualized thought that Loreto was presenting.
In response, Loreto added a tweet to her original thread to make clear that her comment was not “a horse race.”
Loreto then also commented that the site of the Broncos crash was the location of six other deaths.
She commented on the pain two families endured when crash victims were misidentified:
It is after these numerous comments from Loreto were made that it appears the virtual attack on her really took off:
The vast majority of responses on Twitter expressed outrage and hostility that Loreto had made an observation on the uneven distribution of grief and support. The messages to Loreto were especially violent and graphic, and, it seems, mostly from white men:
But where was the outrage being coordinated and amplified from?
Organizing the outrage machine
A reddit post from April 9 on /r/metacanada, a subreddit clearly for people working to get Doug Ford elected premier of Ontario, was one area of coordination. Loreto is incorrectly identified on the post as First Nations.
The next day, Ontario Proud, another organization stumping for Doug Ford and for right-wing causes in general, took one of Loreto’s tweets out of context, describing her as trying to “divide based on how we look” – a stretch given she was calling for equal support for victims of tragedies, regardless of their identity.
The right-wing tabloid the Toronto Sun got in on the action as well, selectively picking bits of Loreto’s thread of tweets:
The article’s author, Adrienne Batra, goes so far as to say Loreto was “smearing the members of the Humboldt Broncos hockey team.”. But at no point does Loreto say anything about the moral character of any member of the Humboldt Broncos hockey team.
That same day, the subreddit for fans of Jordan Peterson, the University of Toronto psychology professor and darling of Canada’s alt-right movement, drew attention to Loreto’s isolated tweet:
The deluge of vitriol aimed at Loreto picked up and kept going:
Alberta politician Jason Kenney, leader of the right-wing United Conservative Party, joined the fray, attacking Loreto to make a political point.
The responses Loreto received were both white supremacist…
…and anti-Semitic:
Somehow, one freelance journalist’s observation had been taken out of context by the right and drawn an astounding amount of attention:
There were campaigns to get her fired from everywhere she had written. Most did not know that Loreto is a freelancer at these publications, so it is not really possible for her to get fired from a position. Nonetheless, many, many people attempted to persuade media outlets to blacklist Loreto. Briarpatch received numerous emails and Facebook messages in this vein.
Two Twitter accounts, @OutlawTory (Patrick Ross) and @brianneamira were among those especially active in replying to Loreto’s tweet, helping bring attention from those mourning the Humbolt tragedy to Loreto’s tweets by including hashtags such as #cdnpoli, #WeAreAllBroncos, #HumboldtBroncos, #PrayersForHumboldt, and #PrayForHumboldt.
On April 11, far-right news site The Rebel as well as and America News Central posted inflammatory articles about Loreto’s tweet, with the former identifying Loreto as a “Maclean’s journalist.”
As a result, Maclean’s, part of the Rogers media empire, issued a statement on April 12 distancing themselves from Loreto, bowing to the pressure and calling Loreto’s comments “incredibly inappropriate.” (Despite the fact that, as others have pointed out, Maclean’s hasn’t issued a public statement denouncing the racist and neo-colonialist writing of some of their other contributors – some of which has been published by Maclean’s itself, rather than simply on contributors’ personal social media.)
On April 12, there were hundreds of posts on the 4chan board “/pol/ – Politically Incorrect” calling for attacks on Loreto, including death and rape threats against her. 4chan is notorious for being an incubator of far-right hate speech. Many of the posts directed their vitriol based on Loreto’s Jewish heritage, which had nothing to do with her commentary.
None of Ontario Proud, Jason Kenney, nor the Toronto Sun have condemned the horrific threats and attacks against Loreto.
A handful of right-wing opportunists, enabled by their associated platforms, have successfully misrepresented Loreto’s simple observation and call for equity to whip up their receptive audience into attacking her personally and professionally. By representing Loreto as the embodiment of a politics this group so despises – a politics conscious of the power dynamics of race and gender – these ringleaders have tried to destroy her livelihood and safety.
The people whose typical crusade is the defence of “free speech” – namely, their right to publicly spew racist, misogynist, homophobic, and transphobic sentiments – are the same ones telling Loreto they hope she is raped and/or dies for her observation. Calling Loreto’s comment “hate speech” – when she said nothing ill of the the Humboldt hockey players or others who died – is a gross misrepresentation, and a transparent attempt to silence and sideline discussions of disparities of power. It’s chilling that simply pointing out that race and gender change the way our society reacts to tragedies invokes such a vicious response. We need to defend the right to think critically and make observations about power.
The families of the victims the survivors of the terrible crash deserve support from our society. What certain people did was to intentionally frame Loreto’s comments to make it appear that she did not care about the victims and their families, which is clearly not the case. That is the real insult; that there are people who would try to convince grieving families and friends that they were being maligned, where they were not.
Loreto, for her part, has remained on Twitter despite the sustained attacks, and has continued sharing news items and commenting on a range of topics.
April 16, 2018:
A previous version of this article stated that tweets by OutlawTory and
brianneamira were apparently intended to make Loreto’s tweet go viral. Briarpatch cannot infer the intent of these two Twitter users, and we have replaced the statement with screen shots of their interactions with Loreto on Twitter. It also made a claim about @brianneamira’s past online behaviour that we cannot confirm the accuracy of at this time.
14 Comments
Disgusting
From Rod in Manitoba on Apr 15th, 2018 at 8:42pm
So you use a Tumblr blog as a source? Come on bro.
From LOL on Apr 15th, 2018 at 10:29pm
Thank you for such a level-headed play-by-play of how we got where we are. You left out the photos of Nora’s children which have also been posted online with cruel suggestions. These “people” will not break her. She has the love of strong families and wonderful friends in her corner. Sadly the pus will continue to flow her way. Her attackers are not friends of reason.
From Frank loreto in Georgetown ON on Apr 16th, 2018 at 5:19am
There is no “right wing rage machine” but there sure are a lot of “left wing progressives” living “in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal” who are fully out of touch. Just a useful bit of help before you continue looking like an idiot, but…4chan generally leans left, unless you’re so stupid that you manage to piss everyone off.
Guess she managed to do that. Maybe you should be asking “why is it okay to be a racist and misandrist” in this day and age, and not be called to account for it.
From Lilly on Apr 16th, 2018 at 5:26am
The vitriol that has spewed due to Ms Loreto’s tweet is vile.
However, the tweet that engendered it was insensitive, tasteless and vile in its own way.
It does little good to contextualize it. What’s said, was said, and it shouldn’t have been. The backlash is disgusting as well. No heroes here.
From Wayne MacPhail in Hamilton on Apr 16th, 2018 at 8:23am
What a disgusting piece. I cannot believe the length of this article which serves only to white knight for an even more disgusting person. This is a Canadian tragedy, and she absolutely made it about identity politics. Your bias is so thick it couldn’t be cut by even a thermal lance. Or does your generation and political affiliation need me to put it in the form of a Harry Potter reference?
From Dan in Ontario on Apr 16th, 2018 at 8:53am
Not good enough. Loreto was trying to get ,?attention on social media, and she did. Stop defending her. Rape and murder comments aren’t Ok, but this lady needs to be condemned for her selfish choices. A reasonable way to target the issue, would have been waiting a little bit longer to ask these questions, not in the midst of the mass international attention.
From Tim on Apr 16th, 2018 at 11:13am
I will refrain and not ask what if the 160 Syria kids that died in the U.S. bombing todau, if had hockey sticks in their little hands, would they have gotten the press then ….but I hold off and wait for a “better time” to bring up the media coverage selection process. This was the point of Nora.
From Wayne in Ontario on Apr 16th, 2018 at 6:15pm
You go to great lengths to point out the foulness of comments she’s been getting and you state that it’s coming from a Right Wing racist campaign. The comments are foul and I’m sure a lot of right wing racists were heavily involved in the sharing of her tweet but it’s also clear that a GREAT many people who were offended by it were neither Right Wing or racist. What you (and she) has failed to do is address why so many people were outraged by it. Neither of you can even consider that perhaps there was something there that just didn’t go down well for decent people everywhere. I think there’s likely truth in what she wrote but the reasons need to be explored and discussed in a civil matter. She said the outpouring was due in part to the gender, age and skin colour. Let’s have a conversation about that.
From Clint on Apr 17th, 2018 at 11:44am
Jordan Peterson is “alt-right”? What does alt-right even mean anymore? It seems to mean: disagree with far left ideology=alt-right; in turn alt-right=nazi. Simple explanations for simple minds imo.
Agreed that those responses from most of the sources are indefensible and shouldn’t take place in civil society. But look at the ones in Peterson’s subreddit, they are not hateful, but reasoned criticisms. Loreto made the death of white boys all about politics. People die and someone says, “hmmm, but they are white and male…” It is upsetting. I guess I am alt-right for making such a hateful statement though.
From Andrew J Montana in Ohio on Apr 17th, 2018 at 4:27pm
From Justin Greene in Mississauga on Apr 18th, 2018 at 2:30pm
Thank you, briarpatch, for taking the time and trouble to expose – and name! – the purveyors and enablers of the ‘right-wing rage machine’.
A slice of Canada most of us would prefer not to acknowledge – yet must – in order to better know where we stand and what we might be able to do about it.
Please keep on doing what you’re doing.
Regards.
R. Wilde
From Robert Wilde in Edmonton, AB on Apr 18th, 2018 at 11:23pm
Andrew claims: “Loreto made the death of white boys all about politics.”
Manifestly not so.* She analyzed the politics inherent (that means already existing) in the massive response to the deaths in the form of crowdfunding.
This may not be clear from Ohio, but please try harder.
From Eric in toronto on Apr 20th, 2018 at 8:12pm
The world is a toilet. If you’re clean, look out!
I’ve got issues with Briarpatch, but good for Briarpatch for supporting the innocent and caring Nora Loreto. Hang in there Nora. Stay safe. The intensification of fascism in Canada, and the world, means that there’s a lot less safety for people out there, not only on roads but everywhere.
From Arby in Toronto on Apr 23rd, 2018 at 5:19am