Should Obama be Killed? Poll Sparks US Secret Service Probe

by Susan Marie Kovalinsky | September 28, 2009 at 12:15 pm

512 views | 43 Recommendations | 8 comments

Should Obama be Killed? Poll sparks US Secret Service Probe

A poll posted on the social networking site Facebook asking if President Obama should be assassinated has prompted a Secret Service investigation, the Associated Press is reporting.

The Huffington Post has a screen shot of the poll. It asks, "should obama be killed?" The possible answers are "yes," "maybe," "if he cuts my health care" and "no."

"We are aware of it and we will take the appropriate investigative steps," Secret Service Darrin Blackford told the AP. "We take of these things seriously."

At least 730 people took the user-generated poll before it was removed by Facebook upon officials learning of its existence this morning. The company said the person who created the poll has been suspended from using the site and that it is working with the Secret Service.

I wonder how long that poll ran before Facebook found it. Good for them to get rid of it. It.'s disconcerting.

What a whacky world we live in!

It is disconcerting that over 700 people participated in that survey. What can the person who posted it be thinking!

We can be thankful the Secret Service acted aggressively and disposed of it.

These are hateful acts, and I hope the person who posted it will be exposed.

From the DailyKos.

And:

Hey everyone. I'm the developer of the Facebook Poll Application that hosted the "Should Obama be killed?" poll. You can read about it here.

I'm sure you have all sorts of assumptions about me, my application, and how this went down, but I want to start by listing a series of facts followed by an open-ended Q&A.

Vann's diary :: ::

Facts

Neither I nor the application have any affiliation with Facebook.
Polls are created by other Facebook users, not me, anyone affiliated with me, or Facebook.
I am the sole person responsible for maintaining, policing, and developing the application.
Thousands of polls are created daily, sometimes as many as 10,000. Each poll has as many as 2MM votes and 200k comments. Of those thousands of polls, most are gibberish and a few are offensive, libelous, or otherwise beyond the pale.
Facebook provides a mechanism for contacting the developer. For most truly outrageous, offensive, etc. polls I get an email directly from a user. If the poll is over the line -- as this one clearly was -- I delete it immediately and take further action as necessary.
Not a single person contacted me directly about this poll.
There is an automated reporting system in place, where users can report individual polls. Once a poll reaches a certain threshold of reports it is placed in a queue which I review daily. I reviewed it this morning and deleted the offending poll.
The poll was created Sunday evening and I deleted it first thing Monday morning. Facebook is not on call for these kinds of things, but I am. The only way Facebook can act is by banning my application, which they did.
I live on the west coast.
I've been an Obama supporter for a long time -- he was my state representative in Illinois -- and I've been on this site for over two years.

It will be very appropriate that the poster of this survey is questioned at length so that they could get to the bottom of this hateful act. There may be a bigger picture.

Why should anybody kill anybody, anyways?

Maybe the secret service posted it and wanted to send a balloon survey to see how the public really feels about the President? It is possible isn't it? The reason Obama doesn't do a lot of things he promised is because he is afraid he will be shot.. I think. That alone tells me America is a wacked out crazy hell hole to live...

Rev. Jermano

The reality of this society we live in creates this situation, I'm not a racist, many folks out there totally despise the fact that a African American, is in the White House. The right wing folks created the environment for this to happen "only in America." The man came into office with a myrid of problems from the Bush era, he (Obama) isn't a "miracle worker (Jesus Christ). The folks who hate Obama that much, to not strongly condemn any violence, are the ones who oppose any and all agendas he brings to the forefront, and are willing to demonize the man at any cost. The hypocracy and blatant racism is so obvious that it is disgusting, labeling the man as not a american citizen, attacking the fact that he has a muslim name, calling him a socialist/Hitler just enflames those haters, who are hellbent on regaining the White House at the expense of a person's life. The strategy is simple, create an environment where the kooks/racists will attempt to "gas up" anyone who would do something this stupid. Remember this, African Americans will not sit idly by while another one of our leaders is struck down. We are tired of the double standards and exclusionary tactics!