05/02/2020 2016 ONCJ 35 (CanLII) | CanLII As far as I can determine, because Twitter conversations are sometimes too concise for anyone not involved to follow, when Mr. Elliott then wrote “You wish” and quoted @CromartyHeather, she replied that that didn’t make sense. Mr. Elliott tweeted “like the #AOTID contributor who makes inaccurate statements about people based on her own crazy fears and needs.” Ms. Guthrie interprets this tweet as showing his intention to communicate with her after she told him in September that she did not want to hear from him. @LadySnarksAlot – Heather Reilly Mr. Elliott and Ms. Reilly never met. Ms. Reilly, whose handle is @LadySnarksAlot, knows Ms. Guthrie. She could not honestly recall her first interaction with Mr. Elliott, though it may have been through #TOpoli. This hashtag, which means “Toronto politics”, has been around a long time, as Ms. Guthrie testified. Ms. Reilly was also associated with #WiTOpoli. She could not recall if she ever saw Mr. Elliott’s handle associated with that hashtag, or comments made by him in relation to it, before the alleged harassment. Ms. Reilly’s interaction with Mr. Elliott appeared to begin, according to the tweets that Detective Bangild obtained through the Sysomos software, in April 2012. They started to exchange tweets and argue about the incident between the mayor and the reporter referred to above. In Ms. Reilly’s case, the issue of the meaning and proper use of hashtags in Twitter arose early, directly and explosively. After three tweets by Mr. Elliott about the incident with the mayor, Ms. Reilly sent a retweet (RT) to @popeshakey, a friend of hers, and to Mr. Elliott. The retweet said: “There really is no need for discussion. ‘Don’t rape us. Don’t attack us. Don’t harass us.’ Why does that require discussion?” In the summer of 2012 she saved a copy of a photo that Mr. Elliott had uploaded and emailed it to other individuals who, according to her, had been harassed in a similar manner to her own experience. Three times during the summer – on July 18 and 30 and August 9 – Mr. Elliott tweeted using the #TOpoli hashtag. One tweet was about the Dufferin bus service, one was about tomatoes, and one was about the smell of garbage trucks. After the last one, Ms. Reilly tweeted: “@greg_a_elliott Please do me a favour & not reply to my posts. You don’t follow me- were you creeping the #TOpoli tag to find my tweet?” Mr. Elliott expressed disbelief in a tweet: “@LadySnarksalot ‘Creeping’ the #TOpoli thread? What are you? Fucking nuts? You hashtag #Topoli you leave your tweets open to comment. #Duh”. Ms. Reilly retweeted that tweet, which meant that everyone who followed her or #TOpoli could see it. Then she pointed out a flaw in his logic, telling him that he had retweeted randomly about her tomato plants with no #TOpoli hashtag. Both read the other’s tweets closely. She ended by asking him to please ignore her feed. And she thanked him by writing “Thx”. Mr. Elliott was not so polite. He tweeted: “Know what? This is Twitter, your request offends my sensibilities. Seriously, you say something #TOpoli stupid, I’m replying.” Ms. Reilly also retweeted that tweet by Mr. Elliott, further expanding the dispute between them to all of her followers. Then she tweeted Mr. Elliott with a period in front of his handle, with the result, according to her evidence – which is different from P.C. Dayler’s and Ms. Guthrie’s, though it is possible that she misspoke – that people who followed neither of them would see it. She did this to create a public record and to notify her followers that she was making a statement that he should stop reading her feed: “Please leave me alone. I have nothing to engage you on, even of [sic] I’ve now ‘offended your sensibilities’. Thank you.” Mr. Elliott replied with a tweet that put a period in front of @LadySnarksAlot so that, again based on Ms. Reilly’s evidence, people who followed neither of them would see that he had directed a statement to her: “.@Ladysnarksalot How’d you feel if I was so delusional to ask you to not retweet me? You want ‘control’ use your email, not Twitter. #Topoli”. Ms. Reilly, still on August 9, emphasized that she did not want Mr. Elliott replying to her tweets. She put a period before his handle and wrote: “.@greg_a_elliott Please stop replying to me. I have nothing more to say to you as I’ve now ‘offended your sensibilities’. Thank you.” During August the dispute escalated, as Mr. Elliott defended an open right to reply on Twitter and read others’ tweets. Twitter could have had a more eloquent defender, as some who joined in pointed out to him about his tone. At one point he tweeted “Snark, How fat IS your ass? #TOPOLI.” Ms. Reilly, though not the first to use vulgar language, had by then retweeted a comment by someone named @criticalbritt, who told Mr. Elliott of a wish that “you’d disappear up your own arse you supercilious fart golem”. This is the register of language sometimes used by both those arguing for an open Twitter and those wanting to prevent further attacks on women. file:///Users/nerissa/Downloads/Columbia CSV/R v Gregory Allan Elliott.htm 25/43