Late last week, news was confirmed that Inuit singer Tanya Tagaq has shut down the Twitter account of an ongoing cyber bully. The main offender has been hurling abusive comments in Tagaq’s direction daily, over the #Sealfie movement.
The #Sealfie movement is an effort to raise awareness of the Inuit seal hunt, which is completely legal. Many members of the Inuit community have been posting pictures of them with seal skins, or the like in response to Ellen Degeneres’ Academy Awards “selfie” that raised nearly $1.5 million for the Humane Society of the United States, the Humane Society and PETA. T
A few months back when Tagaq posted her #Sealfie picture to Twitter of her baby next to a dead adult seal, the backlash she got was way more than she bargained for. One particular Twitter user copied the photo and engaged in some pretty serious cyber bullying from their own account.
She reported being harassed daily by some Twitter users, a handful even threatening to have her child taken away from her. Tagaq even reported that some people were posting Photoshopped images showing her daughter being skinned.
Taking steps in the right direction to stop cyber bullying, Tagaq reported the user and has been on the hunt to shut down the account for a while now. Thanks to the help from Brandon, Manitoba police officers and Twitter, the cyber bully’s account has now been removed from the net.