Mayor Bowman target of online post inciting people to attack him; police examining situation

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This article was published 31/03/2015 (3312 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman and his family have been targeted by racist posts on a self-styled gossip website that offered a $25,000 reward to anyone who can “throw or slam” a pie into the mayor’s face.

The spokesperson for that site now claims the incident is an April Fool’s Day joke.

The incitement to attack Bowman, the city’s first indigenous mayor, took place in a December-dated post on a website the Free Press has chosen not to name.

A subsequent post in January derided the mayor’s Métis heritage, his education, his wife’s ethnicity and their children – as well as Bowman’s response to a Maclean’s magazine article suggesting Winnipeg is Canada’s most racist city, especially when it comes to the treatment of its indigenous citizens.

Following the publication of that article, Bowman gathered indigenous leaders and other prominent Winnipeggers to a press conference outside his office and asserted Winnipeg will work to eliminate racism.

Lucenzo Rizzuto, who identified himself as a spokesperson for the gossip site and insisted he does not own it, claimed he was unaware of the website’s content.

“Whatever gets posted, gets posted,” he said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. “I haven’t even looked at the posts.”

The second diatribe against the mayor also included a link to a Facebook page entitled “Aboriginals need to get a job and stop using our tax dollars.” That page, which appears to be related to an online harassment campaign against a third party, was removed following a social-media outcry.

In a subsequent telephone interview, Rizzuto claimed the Facebook page and the gossip site were April Fool’s Day jokes. He claimed although the pages were created in December and January, he insisted they were not published until March 31.

“Biggest April Fool’s Day joke ever,” he said. “I’m not racist. I’m just a spokesperson. I want to help the aboriginals.”

Rizzuto said he wants to hold a festival, complete with hot-dog carts, for indigenous people near Siloam Mission.

Rizzuto said he does not like Bowman but repeated his assertion he is unaware who made the post about the mayor.

Bryan Schwartz, a University of Manitoba law professor who teaches Internet law, said while he could not comment on the specifics of this incident, the same rules that govern speech in the real world generally apply to speech online.

Schwartz said while there are no simple answers to questions regarding who ultimately is held accountable for online content — U.S. Internet service providers, for example, usually are not deemed responsible for the data they carry — websites typically can not shirk responsibility for the words on their pages.

“Generally speaking, the rules of the real world apply online,” Schwartz said. “It’s not significantly different from saying, ‘Oh, I didn’t know what was on the back of my T-shirt or on the bumper sticker of my car.’ ”

Bowman has been the subject of threats since he was elected mayor in October; on at least one occasion, police have attended his home.

Bowman’s office declined to comment.

The Winnipeg Police Service said in a statement it is “examining the information” regarding the gossip site and offered no further comment.

Former Winnipeg mayor Sam Katz also received threats during his decade in office. The mayor’s office typically does not publicize these incidents.

In 2012, Katz was also the victim of an anti-Semitic poster campaign that also targeted other prominent members of Winnipeg’s Jewish community.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca