Jamaicans in London Ontario Association say social media accounts hacked, harmful messages sent to followers

Members of the Jamaicans in London Association are upset after social media accounts were hacked and posted racist messages. Lauren Stallone reports.

Omar Smith was getting ready for work Monday morning when he received several unusual phone calls.

“I had been getting calls from people I know and people I don’t know saying I needed to go to the social media pages,” said Smith, president of Jamaicans in London Ontario.

He says he was shocked by what he saw.

“Someone gained unauthorized access to our social media accounts, and the person was sharing some very hurtful and very painful messages against our community,” Smith said.

The hacked account belongs to the Jamaicans in London Ontario Association. It’s a non-profit organization aimed at supporting Londoners of Jamaican heritage.

“It’s like two steps forward, two steps backwards,” Smith added.

The organization says the individual sent direct messages containing explicit sexual content and racial slurs to followers of the account.

“I quickly tried to delete all the horrible content that was being posted,” said social media manager Krystina Chase.

Chase says that while she’s experienced similar instances in the past, nothing has been quite as harmful.

“It impacted me personally because I didn’t realize how much hatred was really in that person’s heart to say those heinous things,” she said.

The group says they have contacted London police to help find who was responsible for the attack.

“Accountability should take place, and I hope justice comes to this because our people have been targeted for far too long,” Chase said.

This comes at an already trying time for the Jamaican community, just weeks after the island nation was struck by Hurricane Melissa.

“The hate spilling online is something that took us by surprise. We weren’t expecting it, and we by no means will stand by and let it diminish anything we have worked for,” said Vice President Nadia McCormack-McIntyre.

The organization says it has taken necessary steps to secure all social media accounts and ensure this never happens again.

Their focus now is continuing to provide relief support to family members back home.

“This happened and we just want to say, ‘We are here, I ain’t going anywhere and we are just going to be stronger than ever,’” McCormack-McIntyre added.