Tuesday, September 29, 2009

FT.com / Media - Facebook halts Obama assassination poll

A scary sign of the times

Facebook on Monday disabled a third-party application that asked whether users thought US President Barack Obama should be assassinated.

Facebook and the US Secret Service said they were working together to investigate who published the poll, but a Secret Service spokesman declined to say whether they had located the author yet. It is against the law to threaten the president.

The offending poll was created using an application that allows users to create their own surveys. “The vast majority were benign,” said Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt. It went up at the weekend and came to Facebook’s attention on Monday morning, at which point they took it down.

[…]

“We want Facebook to be a place where controversial ideas can be expressed,” said Mr Schnitt.

FT.com / Media - Facebook halts Obama assassination poll

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