UPDATE – Facebook has pulled the group! Good going everyone passing this around and making some noise.
The headline says it all: there is a Facebook group in existence that is calling directly for the killing of President Obama.
Not only does it exist, but it has a growing membership, and an active wall with users posting a variety of statements that are both racist and treasonous.
Is this a joke? The “About” text feels almost sarcastic: “We are going to kill Obama. Ten of us will surround the capital, armed with sniper rifles. Mr. Hope And Change just made his last speech.” What is your take?
Joke aside, the people in the group hardly seem to be kidding. From the wall, unedited in any way:
Not funny. Not good. The group is in obvious breach of the Facebook terms of use, or “Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.” Facebook expressly prohibits “content that is hateful, threatening, pornographic, or that contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.”
Facebook, remove this group, before the Secret Service picks it up, and subpoenas you for records. Shame on all the bigots and virulent violent vicious murderous ignoramuses in this group.
If the spelling and grammar are indicative of overall intellect, Obama is safe from any well-conceived plotting.
Their anger is downright scary, though.
Can you say “Secret Service honeypot”?
Hmmm, the group seems to be down for the count now. The link only takes you to the FB main page.
In Italy a large number of FB groups calling for violence (or death threats) against Berlusconi have also recently been closed down by Facebook recently (both before and after he was injured in Milan). The government was initially trying to get FB and similar sites shut down but had to relent due to EU law. You can read more about it here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/dec/17/italy-internet-freedom-attack-berlusconi
More proof the Internet is serious business.
Well yeah, why i am not seeing Micheal Arrington mourning about this as he did about the holocaust.
there should be no place for hate groups or they should all be allowed and free.
Wow.. pretty stupid! It would have been much better had he created a Jokes group on Obama or something. this is sick
So much for free speech and the violence that comes with it. Where are the FBI, the CIA and the Secret Service when you need them? Possibly addressing the other trillions of threats that surface daily? This is not surprising considering the Conservative/Republican mantra: If you can’t beat them, spread lies about them. the Conservative/Republican fringe mantra in response to those lies: If you can’t beat them, kill them.
One of the most serious lags I noted in the Facebook push to going into the public forum and breaking down it’s walled garden is that they do not make those using the power of their platform comply with their own terms of use. The line between activism and hate speech gets blurred and the effect of cyber-polarization online create an avalanche of behavior which can and will have serious social repercussions. (Note that the activity then gets the power of being indexed in search engines as an extra bonus, making it even easier to be discovered and do damage.)
This is not the only instance of the Facebook not responding to complaints of their terms of use policy. They conveniently say that any complaint filed will not be responded to. They take themselves off the hook before even receiving the information.
At heart this is a corporate moral issue and Facebook is responsible for the content it allows to propagate on it’s platform when its in violation of its own terms of use.
Don’t worry about these clowns. They’ll be quite surprised when the secret service shows up at their doorstep.
I can’t believe people are stupid enough to post intentions to murder the president on the web! First of all, Obama is the best president this country has seen IMHO, and second, the job of the SS is to monitor all threats to the president. Including online threats.
Do you really have nothing to do other than whine about people that make a crazy facebook group?
I sent one of the kids some hate mail on my fake fb account =]
I’m not finding it. Has it been taken down?
Matt B is the coolest one here. way to solve hate by spreading it.
And Obama is not the best President IMHO. I feel like every time I look hes trying to take a vacation.
either way- that facebook group is stupid and should have never been approved to begin with
This is probably the facebook hate monger ‘Matthew Greenwood’ who makes a lot of groups that are nazi loving, immigrant hating, sexist, end times christian, racist, homophobic…he is supported by organized hate groups worldwide. Facebook has received many reports about him but he continues by putting multiple alias admins that he switches up. Apparently this is acceptable to Facebook (?) and may be worth asking the questions; Why would any company allow this to occur on their website? What is Facebook getting and doing with the data by allowing this to continue? Is information and intelligence gathering being balanced by the real need to prevent hate speech?
Matthew Green has had similar groups about Obama in the past – this is OLD news for the truly Social Media savvy.
http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=white+pride+world+wide&init=quick#/apps/application.php?id=143202295069
http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=298355540009
http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?ref=sgm&id=143202295069
http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?ref=sgm&id=100730166841
Hell they even have had and will continue to make applications to spread hate! Facebook is not a safe place for your kids. End. Period.
looks like a great way to track crazy people.
This is sick, sick, sick, but not surprising. Don’t the creators of this FB page remember that it was, indeed, a white man who got us into this mess? Yes, I’m talking about Dubyah- “Like a rock, but dumber”. Why do ignorant white trash have to start talking about something they know nothing about, like politics, reading, or writing? Go back to your trailer, get your PBR, sit in your recliner and watch a cartoon. Leave the thinking to the educated people. I hope the Secret Service has a ball with this. There’s nothing they love more than bustin ignorant heads together. Obama had my vote, has my vote and I will continue to support him on most of his ideas. (but i do think we need to close our borders until the economic crisis is solved). I think we need to start making examples out of some people. I hope to see these folks on the news, soon.
Why kill a Facebook group that could be left open for the intelligence services to get intelligence from?
Also, we don’t know if group’s like these are honey trap sting operations to lure real criminals and terrorists into. There is more than one dimension to keeping these kind of group’s online.
To me there is more intelligence value leaving these groups up than there is removing them.
Because you’re only going to drive these kind of group’s more underground, where they might be less noticed and monitored.
You’re an idiot. Facebook and Twitter and well known for using abbrv. due to he lake of text allowed in the statement. To underestimate someone due to spelling errors is down right stupidity.
Your argument would come out a bit more convincing if you were to communicate clearly, and take the time to fix your mistakes. \
I agree with Donna.