There is a Facebook Fan Page called: “DEAR LORD, THIS YEAR YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE ACTOR, PATRICK SWAYZIE. YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE ACTRESS, FARAH FAWCETT. YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE SINGER, MICHAEL JACKSON. I JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW, MY FAVORITE PRESIDENT IS BARACK OBAMA. AMEN.” As of right now, there are 1,184,031 members. I browsed through some of the posts….some are just silly and immature, some are completely off topic from anything political, most of the posts are just bashing Obama, and there are some posts that contain good discussions and debates, but are quickly derailed by Facebook trolls. If an individual has strong views about how Obama is running the country, do they think that anyone will take them seriously if they are posting it to this particular Facebook group?
The first question some may have: Is it legal to have a Facebook page hinting towards death of another person? Well according to Facebooks Terms, it is not.
Safety:
7. You will not post content that: is hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.
10: You will not use Facebook to do anything unlawful, misleading, malicious, or discriminatory.
I don’t see an issue with a Facebook page created for people to discuss politics, even bashing what the president is doing wrong in their opinion. As an American, freedom of speech is a right, but wishing harm or death upon another person is not. Even if it was created as a joke, I am sure there are followers of the page that really do want the president dead, or there are over 1 million people that want Joe Biden as president.
Those opposed of this group have created a group called “Petition to remove facebook group praying for President Obama’s death.” This group has 751,266 members. The Facebook page urges people to join this group to spread the word about the page, it also asks people to sign an online petition, and asks Facebook members to click on the “report page” on the anti Obama page and report that it is offensive content. The online petition currently has 27,239 signatures on it.
Social media and the internet in general is a great tool to get information to others, convey your thoughts and feelings on matters important to you, and to start up intellectual discussions; but creating a group wishing or supporting the death of another human being, joke or not, is unethical. What is worse is that it has over 1 million members. When will humans evolve forward and learn that there are other ways to promote change and that violence or threatening to hurt others is not the answer and is only a step backwards in progression?
