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Facebook Group Incites Violence Against Redheads

by Christina 123 | November 23, 2008 at 03:02 am

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FACEBOOK are under fire today for including a group that encourages members to "Kick A Ginger". Already there have been several reports of red-haired people being assaulted at random as a result. The group is 5,000 strong.

Nearly 5,000 people joined the online campaign which urged members to "get them steel toes ready" for a day of booting this week.

The website appears to have been inspired by a recent episode of the cartoon South Park, in which a young character called Cartman describes people with red hair as evil and soulless.

Dozens of children left messages on the page claiming to have carried out attacks on "National Kick a Ginger Day" on Thursday, and a girl in Alberta, Canada claimed that she and her 13-year-old sister were punched and kicked by pupils at their school.

The 14-year-old boy from Vancouver who ran the Facebook group has apologised and insisted that it was only meant as a joke, but the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has launched an investigation and warned that those involved could face charges.

"We do treat this sort of thing seriously," a police spokeswoman told the Vancouver Sun newspaper. "This is sort of inciting hate. It's a hate crime, really."

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Paschen

at 03:37 on November 23rd, 2008

Did Face book know about that prior to it?

Can face book even control tis at all?

So much for South Park. Maybe they should look into that as well. The main problem will be to maintain freedom of expression versus such crimes being propagated.

Christina 123

at 04:18 on November 23rd, 2008

I would have thought they'd have guidelines as to what is not acceptable. "Kick-A- $%^anybody" cannot be reasonable.

generaldecay

at 04:49 on November 23rd, 2008

Oh my! This redhead is very disconcerted to read about this!

LDunn

at 15:54 on November 23rd, 2008

It is sad that a group of people or even an individual has to suffer because someone forgot what their job description reads.

Facebook has a policy that specifically address that situation in place but their Administrators are too busy disabling legitimate accounts this afternoon (23 November 2008) that are within the guideline of their written Code of Conduct.