NOT JUST A POLL: FACEBOOK A HOTBED OF THREATS TO KILL THE PRESIDENT

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A few days ago, The Political Carnival broke the news concerning a Facebook poll asking whether President Obama should be killed. The poll had been up less than 24 hours. Once alerted, Facebook was quick to take the poll down and the Secret Service promptly investigated. But the discovery of the poll has merely scratched the surface of a deeper problem. The Spin Killer’s investigation has revealed that Facebook is rife with a variety of explicit and implicit threats against the current President’s life that have existed on Facebook much longer than 24 hours. Unwittingly or not, Facebook has provided a forum to promote, organize, and discuss carrying out the assassination of the President of the United States. These threats still exist on Facebook as of this morning. The TSK investigation has uncovered threats in each of the following areas:

Facebook Groups: Facebook currently has a number of social networking groups each with an accumulated membership that are seemingly set up to promote, organize, and discuss the future killing of the President. One such group is named DEATH TO OBAMA!!! and they apparently ask the question, “who whats to kill obam [?]” [sic]. This group has existed untouched on Facebook since at least November, 2008 and has 22 active members. One of the administrators of this Facebook group attempts to protect himself by publishing in his own words the following “legal announcement”:

 

"We, whoever joins this group, are in no way serious about assasinating Barack Obama. When you join this group you are simply expressioning your strong republican opinion against this bastard and his "carismatic" opinions about "power to the Goverment!!!!!". So if any FBI/CSI agents are reading this, know that we are NOT serious." [sic]

Another member of the group then seemingly implies that, while the administrator is not serious, he is: “u mite not be, lol…[sic],” he says. Serious or not, it is illegal to threaten the President’s life, period.

Another Facebook Group that apparently leaves no question as to its intent is the group named OBAMA is a jerk and i shall murder him! yeah [sic] This group has 8 active members.

Still another group promises that they will kill the President if their membership reaches five members. This group, named if this group reaches 5 i will kill the president [sic], now has 13 active members. After the group exceeded five members, one member encouraged the creator of the group to make a plan, set a goal, and carry it out. Since this is still posted on Facebook, it presumably has never been investigated.

There is even a group that offers to take over/under gambling bets on the number of days until there is an assassination attempt on Obama. This group, named Over/Under on Obama’s Assassination Attempt has 18 active members and has also existed since November, 2008. One group member even places his bet by saying, “maybe it isn’t realistic, just hopeful, but... 21 [days or less is my bet]."

Facebook Comments: There are a number of comments by Facebook members strewn throughout Facebook that just blatantly state that they are going to kill the President. One commenter says, “I’m gonna shoot him during one of his speeches, it’s gonna be so funny I can’t wait.” This comment has been sitting on Facebook for all to see since March of this year, but has presumably never been investigated. Elsewhere, another commenter states, “Obama should be shot in the head because he is an asshole bastard.” 

Facebook Photos: Photos can be posted to Facebook pages, but even here, there are veiled threats to the life of the President. One such photo displays a noose around the neck of the President while a member comment published under the photo says, “Oh, I wish!!!” This very same member posts in another location on Facebook that, “We really have to do something ourselves not to let this piece of shit win the election in 2012."  And these photos are not necessarily hidden behind layers of webpages. One anti-Obama Facebook Group uses a photo of Obama’s head in gun crosshairs to represent their group in the widely used Facebook Group search index.

The threats against President Obama’s life mentioned in this article aren’t the only ones on Facebook, nor are the threats limited to President Obama. There are threats posted against President Bush as well that have been on Facebook for quite some time.

Ever since 9/11, the public has been told not just that terrorists utilize the Internet to secretly organize their attacks, but also that our intelligence has devoted substantial resources to uncovering terrorist dealings online. So it seems rather incredible that possible assassins can organize, promote, and discuss carrying out the assassination of the President of the United States right out in the open and for as long as they need to on the most popular networking website around without any investigation or safeguards in place whatsoever. If a blogger can find these threats in a mere matter of minutes, Facebook should be able to find these threats instantly, promptly remove them and then report them to the Secret Service. The fact that these threats were able to survive so publicly for months and months on Facebook is unacceptable. God forbid something ever happens to the President and it turns out that the simple clues to stop the tragedy had always been there for the viewing.

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