Barack Obama Facebook Poll Removed
Poll Application Creater Responds to "Should Obama be Killed?"
Sep 29, 2009
Facebook allows its users to create polls on just about anything via an online application created and policed by an outside developer. When an inflammatory poll, which asked, "Should Obama be Killed," surfaced on Sunday, September 27, it immediately gained attention and generated targeted outrage from progressive bloggers, who flooded Facebook and the Secret Service about the poll.
Inflamatory Barack Obama Poll Removed from Facebook by Developer
By Monday morning, September 28, the developer of Facebook's poll application had reviewed and removed the offending poll after a deluge of emails and calls to Facebook and the Secret Service. While the poll application contained filters and avenues through which users could report offending polls, the poll in question about President Obama went viral online before Facebook's poll administrator had even received word about it.
Facebook Poll Developer Responds on Daily Kos
On Monday evening, the developer of Facebook's poll application wrote a diary on Daily Kos which detailed how the application works and what had happened, a diary which immediately shot to the top of DailyKos' Recommended Diaries list. In the diary, the developer revealed the following facts (which are quoted directly from the diary):
- 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.
Facebook Poll Application Disabled After Barack Obama Poll
Facebook immediately disabled the poll application after the media attention it generated. The poll developer revealed this was to ensure that stricter filtering safeguards could be put in place for future polls, after which the poll application would be restored on Facebook.
Secret Service Responds to Barack Obama Poll
The Secret Service are required to investigate any threats to President Obama, and engage in countless such investigations daily. The Secret Service office in San Jose, California, after hundreds of complaints were lodged about the offending Facebook poll, began an investigation on Monday looking into the poll's creator.
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