Canada: Threats of Death and Sexual Violence Sent to CanadianKels
TikTokker known for exposing Multi-Level Marketing scams experienced months-long harassment prior
Location: Canada, Saskatchewan
Date: September 26, 2023
CanadianKels, a well-known TikTokker exposing multi-level marketing (MLM) scams, received an email containing death, sexual violence, and doxing threats after months of harassment and mass reporting of her online profiles. The Coalition For Women In Journalism is extremely alarmed at the organized barrage of hatred the TikTokker has received and worries for CanadianKels’ safety. We urge the police to investigate the matter thoroughly and hold those responsible to account. We call on TikTok to review its reporting mechanisms and urge MLM companies whose consultants attacked CanadianKels to denounce the hatred.
“I am not an easily shaken person; I have thick skin, and it takes a lot to get to me, but this got me,” says Kelsey, also known on TikTok as CanadianKels, visibly dismayed in a video posted on September 26, 2023, following an email threatening her life.
The email CanadianKels received, with the subject line “Kill Yourself,” contained explicit threats of bodily harm, sexual assault, death, doxing the TikTokker, and sending people to her house.
“I have never in my life seen someone be so unbelievably cruel,” she adds.
“I have never in my life seen someone be so unbelievably cruel”
Kelsey, a music teacher and volunteer accountant, started making videos several months ago analyzing data she had collected from women she went to high school with and who were now part of MLMs — a sales strategy akin to pyramid schemes, not outlawed yet, such as Herbalife.
By combining humor, anonymous data, and a quirk for storytelling, the videos soon started going viral. CanadianKels initially compared high school archetypes, such as mean girls, horse girls, jocks, and brainiacs, to see which one was more likely to be part of which MLM. She found that “mean girls are more likely to sell Herbalife and marry cops.”
Soon, she expanded her data set Canada-wide, analyzing who was targeted by which MLM. She found, for example, that stay-at-home moms who had just given birth were specifically targeted by weight loss MLMs.
“These MLMs are targeting people who feel isolated, who feel they are not contributing financially to their household, they may be feeling a little bit upset about their body image,” CanadianKels explains in her video, backing her claims up with openly available data she collected.
CanadianKels rise to fame didn’t go unnoticed by the MLM community.
Overnight, several of her videos were mass-reported and removed for breaking community guidelines for “promoting eating disorders.” CanadianKels suffered from an eating disorder when she was a teenager. None of the videos reported talked about eating disorders or weight loss.
Since then, the TikTokker has continuously battled with hate mail, mass reporting, hate comments wishing the creator bodily harm, and her videos being shadowbanned — the blocking or partially blocking of content from showing up on other people's timelines without notifying the creator. She even received several fake cease and desist letters, which were generated with ChatGPT.
@canadiankels Replying to @canadian kels 🌾 the cease & desist letter in question: #antimlm #antimlmtok #antimlmtiktok #pyramidscheme #delulu ♬ original sound - canadian kels 🌾
The attacks on CanadianKels are neither isolated nor spontaneous. Evidence shows groups of online MLM communities craftily strategizing their hate campaigns against the TikTokker. “They were sent by their leader to email me en masse and sent me threats,” CanadianKels explains.
TikTok Moderation Problems
To moderate content, social media platforms have been known to block or partially block the discoverability of concerning content. TikTok is the only platform, however, that is open about shadowbanning, saying it “may reduce discoverability” for objectionable content by “redirecting search results” and “making videos ineligible for recommendation in the For You feed.”
This leaves the platform vulnerable to mass-reporting tactics. If a video gets too many reports, TikTok either removes the content or shadow bans the videos and creator.
“TikTok's automod is a straight joke, and the Boss Babes seem to have unlimited resources,” Canadian Kels wrote on Reddit after she found out she was mass-reported by MLM consultants who often refer to themselves as Boss Babes.
From Black to transgender and Jewish TikTokers, gossip blogger Perez Hilton and mega-influencer Bella Poarch — all have voiced concern they were shadowbanned at some point due to malicious actors mass-reporting their content.
“I’m just so angry that they can abuse the system to remove extremely informative content,” a Redditor wrote about CanadianKels’ situation.
More harassment
CanadianKels has been shadowbanned on multiple occasions after MLM consultants reported her videos. Several of them received the warning that her videos had “unoriginal content,” meaning she had “reposted them.” Videos started to get muted for copyright violations, even though no music was playing. Videos would sit under review for days, sometimes never get released. Quickly afterward, she received an account warning that she might lose her account if more reports would come.
On the day she received the most horrendous threats yet, her Buymeacoffee account — a platform where you can support content creators by “buying them coffee” — was suspended briefly after it was mass-reported as well.
MLMs
Multi-level marketing (MLM) is also known as direct marketing or network marketing and is a method of selling products directly to consumers using independent sales representatives or consultants. They often recruit promising financial independence and large profits. Although they are not officially illegal, while pyramid schemes are, they have become infamous for putting people in debt.
In the U.S., the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sent letters during the pandemic to various MLMs demanding they remove and address claims about the earnings people who lost income could make. This is the first group of letters to include warnings about claims about potential earnings related to the economic fallout from the pandemic.
TikTok is the only platform to have “banned” MLMs from their platform in December 2020. It currently categorizes them under its community guidelines's “Frauds and Scams” section.
CFWIJ
CanadianKels has made a statement with the police, handing them over all the evidence. She plans to return to TikTok at some point in the future but is currently unsure when.
“I just can’t deal with this,” she says.
“I just can’t deal with this”
The Coalition For Women In Journalism stands in solidarity with CanadianKels, who has been viciously attacked for reporting on publicly available data — data she anonymized to protect the people who are now going after her. The Coalition For Women In Journalism deplores the companies whose consultants have threatened the TikTokker to denounce their actions and implement proper repercussions. We further call on TikTok to put systems in place to avoid malicious users’ mass-reporting, have human moderators verify the reports, transparently explain the reasons for removing or shadowing videos to the creators, and put proper and effective appeal processes in place. We call on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to investigate the threats CanadianKels has received — specifically the last instance in which she was threatened with death, sexual assault, and doxing — and hold those responsible to account.
The Coalition For Women In Journalism is a global organization of support for women journalists. The CFWIJ pioneered mentorship for mid-career women journalists across several countries around the world and is the first organization to focus on the status of free press for women journalists. We thoroughly document cases of any form of abuse against women in any part of the globe. Our system of individuals and organizations brings together the experience and mentorship necessary to help female career journalists navigate the industry. Our goal is to help develop a strong mechanism where women journalists can work safely and thrive.
If you have been harassed or abused in any way, and please report the incident by using the following form.