After attempting to combat the spread of misinformation about the coronavirus, a Woodstock man said he has faced threats and harassment towards him and his boyfriend by anti-lockdown people.
After creating the Facebook group “End the Chaos – Stopping the Anti-Mask Movement” and filming an anti-lockdown rally in his community, Jordan Kent said anti-lockdown people started calling him a child predator online and posting where he lived and worked.
“It definitely makes you feel fear for your safety and the safety of your partner,” Kent said.
“It’s absolutely horrible when people come out of nowhere with these allegations, and they have no proof.”
Kent said on Jan. 21 he live-streamed an anti-lockdown rally in Woodstock for his End the Chaos Facebook page from across the street. He believes the child predator comments relate to the fact that a teenage girl was at the demonstration but Kent said that he never approached the girl.
A lot of the messages and comments about Kent were from the Facebook group called Canadians Against Canadians Against Freedom which has since been taken down.
Screenshots from the group show posting like “do non-essential things against the stay-at-home orders,” and “Black lives don’t matter anymore”.
Kent said he started reporting the group to Facebook on Feb. 9 and the group was not removed until Feb. 18.
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In a response from Facebook sent to Global News, they apologized for not taking the post down sooner.
“We have removed the Page for violating our policies. The Page should have been removed when it was originally flagged to us. We apologize for any unintentional harm caused by this mistake,” a Facebook company spokesperson said.
Kent said it took Facebook too long to take action and they need to do better with their community guidelines.
“There were hundreds of people reporting it for misinformation, hate speech and slander, and it took the media calling Facebook for something to happen,” he said.
“It really does not make you feel safe in your own community, going to the local grocery store, going to Wal-Mart, going to go out to eat.”
Kent said his home was one of several involved in the Woodstock Tour of Lights for Christmas, and through that, the since-deleted group got a picture of his house and his address to post online.
“Thank you for sharing this beautiful home in Woodstock, ON with our group… who wants the address to go visit this beautiful home,” a post from the group said.
Kent also received a private message from someone he believes was using a fake name posting a picture of his door saying, “I know where you live…. you just wait and see what’s coming your way….this time we’re coming to your house, and I (am) bringing all of my patriot friends with me.”
The group also posted where Kent worked at the Toyota Boshoku plant in Woodstock and encouraged people to call his boss to get him fired.
“We all know who is employed here. Keep calling them and let them know what their predator employee is up to,” one post on the group read.
Since then, Kent said his boss has received multiple calls from people saying he should be fired, but that they believed the claims about him were not true.
He said they even went after his boyfriend, Austin Nold.
“If he’s in a relationship with a child predator, must be one as well,” read a comment from the Canadians Against Canadians Against Freedom group.
“They’re throwing it on to my boyfriend, and it’s a way to discredit whatever truth we are bringing to the public,” Kent said.
“We’ve been dealing with a lot of this over the last 10 days.”
Kent said if it weren’t for his boyfriend and dog, Danny, he did not know how he would get through the last few weeks.
He said when the messages turned threatening, he started sending them to the Woodstock police.
Kent shared a copy of the response sent to him by Const. Greg MacArthur on Feb. 15 suggesting he stop responding and delete his Facebook to stop the messages, saying it’s hard to track down a person behind an online account.
In an email Woodstock Police community service officer Friday Shaylyn Jackson said police are aware of the threat allegations and are investigating.
“I’m grateful to the Woodstock police for calling us last night and, you know, facilitating the conversation and apologizing because they did a lot of victim-blaming up until that point,” Kent said.
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