France’s National Assembly voted to allow gay marriage on Tuesday, and, in response to that vote, a disturbing Twitter hashtag began to trend. The actual hashtag reads ‘Il Faut Tuer Les Homosexuels.’ Loosely translated, the hashtag stands for “homosexuals must be killed.”
Users on Twitter began tweeting the hashtag after it was reportedly started by the user Mamadou Neutron.
Mamadou deleted the original hashtag tweet after he was publicly called out; however, he continues to post homophobic messages on his Twitter account.
While some anti-gay Twitter users retweeted the original message, other users took the hate filled tweet further. For example, one user added “Kill them all,” and another added “For a better world…”
As expected, various gay rights organizations quickly attacked the Twitter trend. The group SOS Homophobie is asking users to screenshot the tweet attacks and send them along to the organization. SOS Homophobie has not revealed what they plan to do with the tweets once received.
Supporters of gay marriage quickly turned the “Homosexuals Must Be Killed” hashtag around, posting Tweets in support of gay marriage. A favorite support methodology used by Twitter users has been to post tweets along with hacked photos. Here’s an example form the Twitter user @ maee52 :
#IlFautTuerLesHomosexuels twitter.com/maee52/status/…
— cheyenne (@maee52) April 22, 2013
Gay marriage is a heated topic in many parts of the world including the United States where the battle against Proposition 8 continues to rage on. In the meantime, Twitter users who start such hateful threads continue to remove their messages after they are called out by members of the media.
Do you think Twitter users need to think more about the consequences of their actions before they post hashtags such as “Homosexuals must be killed”?