On Monday Facebook banned all polls by developer Jesse Farmer, after an anonymous user created a controversial and some say illegal poll asking “should obama be killed?”
Unfortunately the only thing getting killed here is freedom of speech, which as I always like to point out: doesn’t only cover popular speech.
Of course any threats against the President should be looked into (and they are courtesy of the Secret Service) but calling this a threat is as ridiculous as the poll itself, particularly when you consider the choices include “maybe” or “if he cuts my health care.” I know some people people have difficulty understanding sarcasm especially on the internet but does anyone actually think he was going to kill the president if he got 51% to say yes!?
And what about all the times George Bush was hung & burned in effigy or accused of being a war criminal, the penalty for which is death by the way. In fact a quick Google shows scores of people calling for Bush to waterboarded. There’s a Twitter account under the name waterboardbush (http://twitter.com/waterboardbush) with the following tweet “we need to know what bush new and when he knew it and why he likes torturing muslims and the english language…there’s only one way.” And wouldn’t you know it, a there’s even a Facebook group called “Let’s waterboard George Bush! (It’s not torture!)” (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5670107698) in which someone by the name of Meg Baker says “Hmm…US cut the heads off of Japanese soldiers who waterboarded US soldiers in WWII, claiming it was “torturous & against the rules of war”. Does that mean we get to cut off Rumsfeld’s head now?”
I’ve contacted both Twitter and Facebook about these unambiguous threats, let’s see how they respond if at all. One thing’s for sure you won’t see these Bush bashers getting any coverage on CNN or their ilk.
But on a serious note (sarcasm), even if someone did kill Obama you know he’s just gonna come back what with him being the Messiah and all, so if you’ve got a problem with this poll well then maybe you’re just a zombist.
UPDATE:
Facebook has removed the group in question, while Twitter has taken no action.
[poll id=”17″]
