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Twitter users are flooding the hashtag #ProudBoys on social media with images of LGBTQI + pride, crowding out posts made by neo-Nazis and white supremacists who use the label.
Members of the far-right group Proud Boys attend a rally in Portland, Oregon, on September 26, 2020 (Photo: REUTERS / Jim Urquhart)
VANCOUVER: Twitter users are flooding the hashtag #ProudBoys on social media with images of LGBTQI + pride, crowding out posts made by neo-Nazis and white supremacists who use the tag.
Proud Boys, a far-right group founded in 2016, calls itself a “white chauvinist” organization, but is considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The group made the news after US President Donald Trump refused to condemn them during Tuesday’s presidential debate, instead telling them to “stand down and stand by,” which many members of the group took as a backup. Trump later denounced the group in a Fox News interview.
On Sunday, the #ProudBoys hashtag started trending in North America, as LGBTQI + users included it in photos of their loved ones or wedding days and other images of pride.
“Check out these cute #ProudBoys,” Bobby Berk, host of the popular Netflix show Queer Eye, wrote on Sunday along with a photo with her husband. “Retweet and create this hashtag about love, not hate.”
The official Twitter account of the Canadian Armed Forces in the United States shared an image of a military man kissing his partner, captioned with emojis of the Canadian flag and the rainbow pride flag and the hashtag #ProudBoys.
“If you wear our uniform, know what it means. If you are thinking of wearing our uniform, know what it means,” the organization said in a follow-up tweet. “Love is love.”
An internal Canadian military report in November 2018 found that 53 members were found to have made discriminatory statements or were linked to hate groups, including the Proud Boys and the anti-immigrant group Soldiers of Odin.
