From @im_adam_barrett on Twitter

Here we go again. Like small children who have just discovered the power of the tantrum, the terrible people at A Voice for Men seem to have realized that the only reliable way for them to get the attention of the world is to act like complete assholes in public. And so some fans of AVFM have decided to bring back the “Don’t Be That Girl” campaign — you know, the witless and misogynistic “parody” of the successful Canadian “Don’t Be That Guy” rape awareness campaign. Now they’re postering in Halifax.

But there’s one difference: this time they’ve put the logos of the real sponsors of the real “Don’t Be That Guy” rape awareness project on their phony posters. (You can see the whole list by downloading one of the pdfs of the real posters on this page.)

So far, two of the organizations listed on their phony posters – the Bryony House shelter for victims of domestic violence and the Halifax Police Department – have made very clear that their logos are being used without permission.

We are in no way affiliated with the slanderous campaign being distributed around Halifax and we have not given consent to use our logo.—
Bryony House (@BryonyHouse) March 24, 2014

@Allisomething Tk u for reporting. We're not a sponsor of this campaign and find it deeply troubling. We'll be looking into this further HT—
Halifax_Police (@HfxRegPolice) March 24, 2014

It’s a pretty safe bet that the other organizations whose logos were appropriated feel similarly.

I’d like to encourage anyone who can afford it to follow up on a suggestion from Cloudiah in the comments and donate to Bryony House so that some good can come out of all this.

Now, I’m no expert on Canadian law, but it seems rather unlikely to me that it’s legal to simply stick some organization’s logo on something and pretend that they have endorsed it. Especially when that organization is the police.

Apparently some MRAs disagree with me on that:

@BryonyHouse @eastcoastkto @im_adam_barrett @HfxRegPolice

Your consent is not required for these posters.—
Paul Elam (@AVoiceForMen) March 24, 2014

“Your consent is not required” seems to be the operating assumption of a lot of those drawn to the Men’s Rights movement.

In later tweets, Elam claims that using the logos is legal because of “fair use,” which is not actually a term used in Canadian law, and promises that the “[p]osters will continue, cupcake.”

I guess we will see. Here are several more photos of the posters. There’s more discussion of this in the AgainstMensRights subreddit.

Lots of real comedians around town apparently… http://t.co/P92KmW3I41—
Adam Barrett (@im_adam_barrett) March 24, 2014

and one more before I vomit everywhere http://t.co/jEJTXSSHXG—
Adam Barrett (@im_adam_barrett) March 24, 2014

EDITED TO ADD: Elam has now responded to the critics, and promises to bankroll any legal challenges against the posterers. It’s pretty clear that he doesn’t understand why the logos are a problem.

EDIT/CORRECTION: It’s not completely clear that this postering campaign originated with AVFM. It’s pretty clear, though, that it’s supported by AVFM, and that those involved in it are supporters of AVFM. I’ve made a few changes to the headline and first graf to reflect this.