Outspoken health experts say racist attacks on social media have taken their toll

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Many Canadians have seen how quickly disagreements over public health measures during the pandemic can become ugly.

As restrictions loosen across the country and active cases of COVID-19 decline, Canadian doctors who have taken to social media during the crisis to share advice and correct misinformation say the hatred they are facing are facing online is not going anywhere.

If anything, it’s stronger than ever.

“What I thought was bad in March 2020 has actually gotten worse now,” said Dr Amy Tan, a family and palliative care physician in Victoria.

When anti-Asian hatred escalated last year with the arrival of COVID-19 in North America, Tan said she was inspired to use social media as a platform to speak out against racism.

Dr Amy Tan, a palliative care doctor in Victoria, said some of the racist messages she had received were too ugly to repeat. (Submitted by Amy Tan)

She tweets on a range of topics, sharing her own experiences with racism, advocating for the use of masks, discussing vaccines and commenting on social justice issues.

Her social media presence means that she regularly falls victim to misogyny and racism from trolls who send her direct messages, emails, and sometimes physical mail.

“I actually asked my assistant to be careful and wear gloves when she opens mail that looks a bit suspicious because I have received physical hate mail,” Tan said.

One of the most hurtful comments, she said, came after she finished a live television interview on Canada Day last year.

“I got an email on my work email and it said, I’m a ugly g – k and my eyes were too small and I had to open my eyes,” she said. .

“[My husband] worries for my own physical safety, but also for the toll this is taking on me. Our 12-year-old son is getting an anti-racism masterclass. “

Tan said enemies often confuse her and confuse her with Canada’s chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam. She said she took a screenshot of the comment, which included a GIF of a Chinese military parade. It was published in the comments section of a CBC News article. (Submitted by Amy Tan)

It is not just racialized doctors who have been criticized. Strong health advocates across Canada have been trolled, their accounts hacked and threats received.

More recently, Manitoba’s provincial director of public health, Dr Brent Roussin, told reporters there had been suspicious activity around his home and the severity of online threats targeting him had increased.

“I have certainly received a number of threats against me and my family. I have been in contact with security and the police, and followed up,” he said on Monday.

“Like nature, the Wild West”

Dr. Naheed Dosani, a palliative care physician and lecturer at the University of Toronto, admitted that most healthcare professionals have faced quite a bit of hatred during the pandemic.

“Health workers of all stripes have been targeted, but I think health workers who are racialized people of color, health workers who have been public have been targeted in particularly nasty ways,” Dosani said.

Dosani was active on social media before the start of the pandemic. He used Twitter, Instagram and TikTok to comment on social issues, such as better standards of health care for the homeless.

When the crisis hit Canada, he continued to advocate for issues of racism and injustice, while also pivoting to raise awareness of physical distancing and masks.

He has tried to report racist comments to the social media platforms he uses, he said, but there are so many that it is difficult to follow. “It sometimes looks like the Wild West, the Wild West.”

Dr Naheed Dosani said that while health workers of all stripes have faced an increased level of hatred during the pandemic, he believes people of color have been targeted in particularly unpleasant ways. (Vishal Trivedi)

In a screenshot he shared with CBC News, an Instagram user sent him a private message calling him a “sub-human brownie,” sharing a video of a man spitting.

Often the comments are about his skin color, his appearance or whether he has a Muslim name, Dosani said.

Another private message sent to his Facebook account read: “If you don’t like it here, how about going back to that shit hole you came from and see how far you go? ‘at that point, close it.! “

Hatred can be very real and hurtful, Dosani said. Some messages scared him, others just angered him.

“There are days when I feel like, why am I doing this? Because it’s just a heavy personal toll.”

Hello indoor BBQ activists,

You are not oppressed. You are inconvenienced.

Learn the difference.

Your threats won’t stop me.

#adamsonbarbeque pic.twitter.com/3C3I0QWd8b

– @ NaheedD

As the pandemic evolves and subjects have moved from blockages to masks and vaccines, Dosani said enemies have not calmed down: they have only changed the focus of their anger.

“In many ways, trolling continues and in some cases has increased,” he said.

So far he has supported the trolls as he believes doctors have a “moral obligation to disseminate scientific and factual information”, especially at a time when online disinformation is rampant.

Unless the comments go far enough to warrant a criminal investigation, Canadian doctors who speak openly on social media say they are mostly on their own when it comes to dealing with trolls.

Beyond reporting and reporting racist comments on social media platforms, there’s little they can do.

“If I was in a healthcare facility, worked in person, and someone came in and was verbally aggressive, racist towards me, there would usually be repercussions,” Dosani said. “When you are online, these guarantees are not present.”

Will hate leave some feeling muzzled?

Canadian Medical Association (CMA) President Dr Ann Collins said she saw how bad trolls can be on social media and worried about the number of doctors.

The CMA advocates for the interests of Canadian physicians and for issues in the health care sector. Even before the pandemic, Collins expressed concern about the rate of burnout among doctors.

“The potential downside is that some of these people who are good advocates, who speak the truth well, who have good evidence that they will, in some cases, feel like they are being muzzled by this vitriol,” said she declared.

Dr Jennifer Kwan said that when trolls target her, she feels like she is alone. The possibilities for recourse are limited, unless there is a physical threat that can be reported to the police. (Submitted by Jennifer Kwan) “I tried to avoid discussing it”

Burlington, Ont., Family doctor Dr. Jennifer Kwan has no plans to let the trolls silence her.

When the pandemic hit last year, Kwan co-founded the Masks4Canada group to advocate for the use of masks and also began using Twitter to share COVID-19 data in Ontario. She spends at least an hour a day compiling data and creating the graphs she tweets, to help people understand how COVID-19 is affecting the province.

“I know this has been helpful for a lot of people,” she said. “In all walks of life, you will never get 100% positive feedback.”

When she first started, she didn’t expect such a negative reaction.

“I tried to avoid discussing it, because I don’t want to highlight this kind of hateful behavior.”

But when asked about it, Kwan admits that she dealt with racist and sexist comments, emails and phone calls.

“We sometimes have the impression of being alone, because unless there is a physical threat, it is not something that we can report to the police or to any authority”, a said Kwan.

Still, she does her best to ignore enemies.

“A lot of these hateful comments are from anonymous people,” Kwan said. “If they can’t even put their own name and face on social media, then why should we care about their comments, when we put ourselves forward?”

Kwan has received hateful and threatening comments on social media, like this one, which says she should be “sentenced to something worse than death.” (Twitter) Was it worth it?

The trolls got bad enough for uOttawa epidemiologist Raywat Deonandan that he decided to lock down his personal Twitter account; only people he approved were allowed to see his tweets.

Deonandan, who has a baby, said he realized he had to think about the potential toll for his family.

It’s not that the constant stream of comments, like “you should go back to where you came from”, was particularly hurtful to Deonandan; growing up in Toronto in the 1970s as a non-white person helped him develop thick skin.

“Some harsh words are not going to hurt me,” he said. “It just makes me sad. It makes me sad for my son’s future.”

He was pressured into locking his account, he said, when he realized it was no longer worth it. The coup de grace came a few months ago when someone tried to hack their Twitter account.

“It’s to the point where I don’t know if what I’ve done has been helpful. And it’s been unpleasant.”

University of Ottawa epidemiologist Raywat Deonandan says online hatred has wreaked havoc not only on him, but his family as well. (Evan Mitsui / CBC)

Deonandan has been active online for years, via social media and on his personal blog. He’s always been ready to engage with enemies and try to create a thoughtful back-and-forth, he said, but during the pandemic things have changed.

“I’ve found that a lot of people aren’t looking for a conversation. They’re just looking to hurt you.”

People sent Deonandan indirect threats of violence, like “Someone should beat you up.” Some even contacted his university dean and tried to have him fired.

“It made my spouse miserable. It made me miserable. My employer was also a little worried about the amount of abuse I was going through,” he said.

But he does not want to pass for “woe to me”.

“For every horrible message I get, I get 50 that support me enough.”

Tan, on the other hand, said the trolls only reminded him of how important it is to keep speaking out. “If anything, my conviction to fight for all the inequalities that COVID has brought to light has been fueled,” she said.

Dosani agrees. Despite the emotional toll of his social media advocacy, he said he was not backing down.

“I’m just getting started. The hate and the vitriol won’t stop me.”

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