Toronto model Miriam Mattova says she has received death threats on social media since coming forward about an antisemitic incident involving an Uber driver last month.
“It affects me emotionally and psychologically, and it forces me to become more cautious in my daily life,” she told National Post.
“When you see what has happened recently in Sydney or at (Brown) University this week, it becomes impossible to dismiss these threats…These incidents show us exactly where unchecked hate and intimidation can lead.”
On Sunday, 15 people in Australia
were killed in a terror attack
while celebrating Hanukkah at Bondi Beach. Two students were
murdered in another incident at Brown University
in Rhode Island over the weekend. Police have identified a person of interest in the Brown shooting but have not said whether they have determined a motive.
In late November, Mattova said she
was kicked out of a vehicle by an Uber driver for being Jewish
. She was left at an intersection in downtown Toronto in the middle of the night. The company told National Post earlier this month that it was “deeply sorry” for her experience and that they contacted Mattova “directly” and took “appropriate action on the driver.” Uber did not say what action was taken.
Since then,
more Canadian Jews have come forward
to share their experiences with Uber. That includes a Jewish couple who were travelling in Europe in August when they said an Uber driver wouldn’t take them because they were from Israel, and another Jewish couple who said an Uber driver refused to take them home from the Toronto airport in February after he heard them speaking Hebrew.
Although many people showed support for Mattova online, she also faced a deluge of antisemitic hate messages and death threats. “Should have just slit your throat lol,” one person wrote to her on Instagram.
“(I’m going to) kill you someday,” another person wrote.
She was called a “dirty Zionist Jew,” “baby killer” and an “unhuman terrorist” for sharing her support for Israel. One person sent her a private message with an image that said: “Murderer rot in hell.”
Another person commented that Mattova was a “shameless genocide lover,” and added, “one day you’ll reap what you sow.”
“So happy the Uber driver kicked you out for being a Jew,” one person wrote.
She reported the threats she received to Toronto police. She said it was “sobering” to learn how difficult it is to trace the people behind the accounts.
“Uttering threats is a serious criminal offence. All reported incidents will be investigated thoroughly,” Toronto police spokesperson Cindy Chung told National Post in an email. Anyone receiving a death threat via social media, email, or any digital platform should call 911 if it is believed to be an “imminent threat to your life or physical safety,” she said.
“Do not engage with or block the user until you have captured evidence. Take screenshots showing the sender’s handle, the platform, and the timestamp,” Chung said, who also advised people to file a report and notify police if personal information, including address or phone number, has been exposed.
Immediately “disable location services on your devices and review your privacy settings,” said Chung.
“They told me that I should either change my Instagram username or change my number, but I shouldn’t be doing anything to change my life because I didn’t do anything wrong,” Mattova said.
“Either social media companies take responsibility and implement meaningful verification and accountability mechanisms, or governments will have to compel them to do so.”
She added that what she’s demanding of companies doesn’t equate to silencing speech.
“It’s about ensuring that speech carries responsibility. Without that, the gap between online hate and real world danger will only continue to shrink,” she said. “When threats are ignored or impossible to trace, they become normalized. When they are normalized, someone eventually acts on them.”
As one solution that Canada could implement, Mattova pointed to a new law in Australia that bans teens under the age of 16 from top social media platforms. Companies such as YouTube, Facebook and Instagram are now blocking them from joining.
“It demonstrates that regulation and action is possible, and that when there is a political will, a meaningful safeguard can be implemented,” she said.
She also said that social media platforms need stricter policies when it comes to allowing people to create accounts. Although she reported the users who threatened her on Instagram to the platform, she continued to be harassed.
“If you go to a bar, you need to show a proof of identification. It should be the same for social media,” she said.
“Complete unaccountability has empowered keyboard warriors to normalize hate and escalate threats without consequences, which can empower certain individuals to much worse — incidents like we saw this week in Sydney.”
Accounts should be linked to verified identification or financial credentials “to ensure traceability and accountability.”
Meta, the company that owns Instagram, did not return National Post’s request for comment in time for publication. It says
: “We remove content that could contribute to a risk of harm to the physical security of persons. Content that threatens people has the potential to intimidate, exclude or silence others and isn’t allowed on our services.”
“Like many individuals who publicly advocate for Jewish causes, I receive a significant volume of death threats and online abuse, and I am actively working to shift the narrative from reaction to prevention,” said Mattova, adding that online hate doesn’t only stay online.
“The violent rhetoric…it becomes a casual thing, and even threats start to feel casual and acceptable for the people making them,” she said.
“We are already seeing the consequences.”
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