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originally posted by: mobiusmale
I mean, seriously, what is happening to America??
In the 12 days since Donald Trump took the oath of office, a steady stream of social media posts have called for the new president's assassination. The posts are pretty basic and many are jokes or sarcastic or hyperbolic — but there are a lot of them. In a Dataminr search of Twitter posts since Inauguration Day containing the phrase "assassinate Trump" more than 12,000 tweets came up.
Whether "just kidding", sarcastic or hyperbolic, this is just not cool...because with this kind of traffic, the frequency and commonality of it, some nut-bar out there is going to think he has lots of support for his wacko murderous fantasies, and he is going to give it a try.
Much like a person who gets radicalized by spending too much time on ISIS sites...and then begins to fancy himself a holy warrior, who is being called to murder innocent people. Or just like radical-right leaners (like the recent mass killer in Quebec) who bathe in that brand of hatred and eventually decide that they are "doing the right thing" by gunning down innocent people in their place of worship.
But there have been reports of agents knocking on the doors of social media users. A Kentucky woman who tweeted, "If someone was cruel enough to assassinate MLK, maybe someone will be kind enough to assassinate Trump," is currently being investigated by the Secret Service, according to the Associated Press.
An Ohio man tweeted several messages about killing Trump on election night, according to NBC News. The Secret Service questioned him the next day and he was charged with making threats to the then president-elect.
IMHO, not only should the Secret Service be going after people who go down this road on Twitter (or in front of mass audiences...Madonna), but Twitter users should be "policing" these people as well - letting posters know in no uncertain terms that it is not okay to call for the murder of anyone, including the POTUS.
On the platform side, Facebook and Twitter have policies in place to take down threatening posts. As Twitter said in an email statement, "The Twitter Rules prohibit threats of violence, and we will suspend accounts violating that policy." Facebook similarly said under their "credible threats policy" they remove posts showing intent to kill the president.
Yet thousands of posts that use the words "kill" and "assassinate" remain up — most of them targeting the president no less. The platforms can't seem to keep up with the influx of death threats and don't seem to be upholding their own policies as strictly as they would like.
And, yes, the platforms...Twitter or otherwise...need to be doing a better job of deleting such posts, and banning people calling for violence.
Political protests are protected speech...riots are not. Political discussion, discourse, debate and even argument are protected speech...calling for the physical harm of people who don't share one's political point of view is not.
America needs to get a grip, and back away from this inflammatory craziness before things get completely out of control.
Tweets Gone Wild
originally posted by: UnBreakable
a reply to: mobiusmale
Scary thing is, he will be assassinated in 2017.
originally posted by: antoinemarionette
I do believe Obama had a few more death threats than Donald Trump ever had or ever will have, because he won't be in office that long.
Obama Receives Over 30 Death Threats Per Day
originally posted by: 5StarOracle
a reply to: TDawg61
Terrorists and dissidents is exactly what they were made for...
originally posted by: zosimov
originally posted by: 5StarOracle
a reply to: TDawg61
Terrorists and dissidents is exactly what they were made for...
Same with the Gulag, German concentration camps etc Looks like we're in great company.
originally posted by: TDawg61
FEMA Camps for liberal seditionists.They deserve them.