Metro Vancouver women, kids being harassed by social media accounts

VANCOUVER (CityNews) — Dozens of Instagram accounts have been harassing women and children primarily in the Lower Mainland, apparently stealing family photos, tracking down phone numbers, and inundating them with emails. Multiple women who have been targeted say they believe it’s all being done by one person, and despite going to the police — nothing is being done to stop him.

The user seems to have a variety of accounts, many with red profile pictures. The numerous accounts mainly post pictures of women and kids — tagging the person whose photo is being shared, writing captions like “my *** little freak” with heart and kissing emojis. CityNews has spoken to five women who say all of this is being done without their permission.

"It seems to be mainly young single mothers… he seems to like post their photos of their kids"
Harassing women & children online, that's what appears to be happening through multiple social media accounts believed to be run by one man in Metro #Vancouver. @CityNewsVAN @NEWS1130 pic.twitter.com/s6j1ZtV9X1

— Ashley Burr (@AshleyBurr_) June 18, 2021

Alesha Levesque lives in Chilliwack with her young daughter, Emma. She says she was the first woman to be targeted, and believes the person behind the accounts went to high school with her.

“He’s made like 11 maybe accounts of my daughter. Some of them are even provocative, and the things he said are disgusting towards a four-year-old,” she says.

“I didn’t know he was posting pictures of girls and suddenly he posted a picture of me and I was getting creeped out about it. Then he started posting my daughter and at that point I said, ‘Oh this is not okay.’ I messaged him and said, ‘What are you doing? You don’t have permission to post my daughter.’ Then he got really creepy about it, and started making a bunch of profiles of my daughter.”

‘It makes me feel uncomfortable and unsafe as a woman’

Levesque says the harassment began in 2014 and has gotten progressively worse. She has now connected with almost 100 other women who have been affected.

Emily Brussow is one of them, and she says the posts are relentless.

“He posts all hours of the day — as soon as he wakes up until he goes to sleep he is on there. It’s been almost a month of that. Even if its not the same girl everyday, he will find new people and go through all the girl’s friends and family and all of their followers,” she explains.

“It seems to be mostly single mothers that I’ve noticed that he posts photos of their kids. It makes me feel uncomfortable and unsafe as a woman.”

One of the women, Jade Charlton has started a group chat for women who are being harassed through these social media accounts.

“I don’t know about everybody else but I feel violated and angry. Every time he posts a kid, I get physically sick,” she tells CityNews.

After getting inundated with messages calling her “baby,” and telling her he has posted stories about her Charlton stopped responding.

“That’s why I think he started messaging me more, because it’s three or four times a day now.”

The women say they have reported the accounts to Instagram, and some have been taken down.

But new ones keep being created.

Some forms of online harassment can leave police ‘hand-tied’: expert

Chilliwack RCMP confirm they have received a complaint about the accounts, telling CityNews they instructed the women to block the account and report the incident to the social media platform. They also say it’s important to document, record, and report online harassment. The Vancouver Police Department says they have not received any reports.

Jesse Miller is the founder of Mediated Reality, an organization that runs workshops about online safety. He says online harassment can be difficult to investigate and prosecute — particularly when there are no explicit threats made. That’s why they so often tell people to seek redress by contacting the company.

“Police, in some ways, are a little bit hand-tied because unless it meets the threshold for an active investigation or recommending Crown charges we could feel powerless,” he says.

“Every instance on social media when someone does something we don’t like, isn’t necessarily a criminal act.”

The women all say they have decided to speak out as a way of fighting back, and with the hope that shining a light on the harassment will make it stop. With the police saying they can’t do anything, and the social media companies seemingly unable to keep up with their reports about this man, the women all say they wish there were far more tools to hold people accountable for online harassment.