Thursday 29 January 2009

Hate, Facebook and spelling

Sometimes I worry about humankind.

Today, this happened when one of my friends signed up to the Facebook group, "The man who raped and killed his 8 day old baby needs to be killed!!!".

Regardless of the crime, the group itself is deeply hateful. But what makes matters worse are two very, very important facts:
  1. The "crime" happened over two years ago, and people are still joining the Facebook group.
  2. The man in question was completely cleared of all charges due to a complete lack of evidence.
Should I be most disturbed by the fact that people are still signing up and demanding that an innocent man be executed? Definitely, and I certainly am. But it seems that quite a large proportion of the group members have signed up because they are appalled of the same thing. Some of the discussion board threads on the group are utterly brilliant, although they are definitely not for the easily offended. Reading beautifully eloquent posts belittling those that appear and text-speak death threats to an innocent man is surprisingly uplifting.

Without a doubt, the best thread is this one:
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=7828982116&topic=7248

The thread title - "Watch thsi video if you like rapping kids" - is 100% accurate; the opening post links to a YouTube video featuring some kids performing a rap. But the fact that there were people who think that "rapping" is the correct spelling of "raping", or that YouTube would host a video of such a thing, is troubling. Mind you, some of the responses by sane people in that thread are superb.

Facebook is full of groups like this, and if the owners had any sense of decency they'd make it a breach of the T&Cs to start a group that demands the killing of someone. Or any hate-related groups, for that matter.

Or would that "offend their core demographic"?

Perhaps I should start the "People who create Facebook groups demanding that any person/group of people should be killed, should be killed"...!

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