Facebook group 'People of Winnipeg' spurs call from activist to shut it down

Pictures posted on a Facebook group called “People of Winnipeg” are going viral.

The images are so popular, thousands of people are sharing them and posting comments about them.

Jesse Nahuliak is one of the Facebook group’s administrators.

"Last Monday, we were only at 600, and it just exploded," he said. Now, the members are more than 17,000.

Nahuliak said the group was meant to be fun or interesting, but admits many of the new posts are inappropriate, even racist.

"I'm sorry for all the people who have been so affected by something that's just on the Internet. You can't take things so seriously and blame it on the people who made the page because we're not the ones posting all the hatred," added Nahuliak.

Youth activist Michael Redhead Champagne said the administrators of the page need to go further.

"I think the responsible thing for the admins of that page to do is to take it down," said Redhead Champagne.

He said his birth mother is on the page as a vulnerable person and finds nothing funny about the Facebook group

"To me there's nothing funny about seeing our relatives struggling on our streets. That's a cry for help and if I'm going to be made aware of this, I want to do what I can to help prevent these people continuing to struggle in their addictions and I don't want to berate them or make fun of them," said Redhead Champagne.

Nahuliak and other administrators of their page are considering closing it down, but hope they won't have to do it, if they can keep up deleting the hurtful posts.

He said he has no idea why the membership list has exploded.