In 2003, Fondation Émergence, an NFPO whose mission is to raise awareness around the plight of the LGBT community, founded the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, now observed worldwide. Held annually on May 17, the day is a rallying event that aims to better the situation of LGBTQ2+ people all around the world.

This year, to remind everyone that homophobia and transphobia are still very present worldwide, the organization decided to tackle cyberhomophobia and cybertransphobia. The objective was to galvanize the public into flagging hate-speech online and reporting it as inappropriate, increasing the number of reports on social media such as Twitter and Facebook. However, this had to be done without the help of the two social media giants. The agency needed to convince individuals to take action.

The core insight stemmed from a troubling statistic: every 23 seconds, a homophobic or transphobic comment is posted online. What is more alarming is that these comments are not acted upon, reported, removed. The issue is getting worse, and little is done by Big Silicon Valley tech companies to rectify it. Hate generates clicks.

The resulting idea was a social experiment created by posting online homophobia and transphobia in the real world to make it unignorable. The team created “Brutal Postings”, an OOH campaign consisting of seventy-four hateful English and French posts from the last six years, all of which are still findable online.

A video capturing Fondation Émergence’s experiment shows some pedestrians staring
at the wild postings in shock, while others curse their existence and demand that they be taken
down. The hope with the campaign is that, one day, everyone will react as strongly online.
When the posts – many of which have been online for years – began appearing as wild postings in downtown Montreal, a dozen calls were made to police, who had them taken down within twenty minutes. Meanwhile, all those hateful messages are still online.

The video became the hero piece to share online, raising awareness and inviting people to take action. This was followed by an organic PR push nationally and internationally. The media coverage helped generate considerable buzz, with video views nearing 1.5 million in less than a week across all platforms. A number of notable local celebrities shared the video, including the mayor of Montréal and the Ministry of Justice of Canada. It was also announced that a few schools would use the material in classes for prevention and education with kids. Notable news outlets such as Radio-Canada/CBC, Journal de Montréal, Huffington Post, Global News, TVA and CKOI (one of the biggest radio stations in Montréal) covered the initiative, allowing for additional reach and awareness of the platform.