Angry Twitter Bird from Aaron Riddle, Wedding and Portrait Photography blog.
Two twit-diots posted messages calling for the assassination of Barack Obama following the U.S. president’s groundbreaking healthcare legislation last night.
Username @Solly_Forrel posted more than one threatening tweet. He wrote:
“America, we survived the Assassinations and Lincoln & Kennedy. We’ll surely get over a bullet to Barack Obama’s head.”
Metro.co.uk reports that he later added to his original tweet with:
“If I lived in DC. I’d shoot him myself.”
Another user, @THHEE_JAY, also had harsh words for the president.
“You Should be Assassinated!! @Barack Obama.”
Personally, I’m of the mind that to tweet or not to tweet is certainly not the question when your message is one of hatred, threats and menace.
It’s time people begin to realize that things they say on the Internet are taken seriously.
These two certainly are, as the secret service is investigating both of them, common protocol for any perceived threats against the president.
“We respect the right of free speech, but in such instances we have a right and an obligation to ask questions and determine intent,” said the secret service, according to Metro.co.uk.
I wonder if these two think that because what they’re saying is just a tweet, or only their friends are following them, that what they say doesn’t matter.
In journalism school, we’ve certainly learned that publishing on the Internet – and posting a tweet is publishing – is every bit as serious as publishing in print. The things that people write online are just as susceptible to libel – or, as this case warrants, investigation – as anything you say in a newspaper or magazine. Just because the Internet seems to be this vast digital frontier, filled, as we know it is, with incorrect information, doesn’t mean that what you say doesn’t mean anything.
In this situation, I suppose it’s just as well that the two idiots posted their thoughts on social media, after all, if they did in fact pose a real threat, well, that’s certainly being investigated now.
But it serves as a warning, to politicians and average people alike, careful what you say online.
What do you think?
How careful are you when you post things online?
I try to be as careful as possible when I post anything on the Internet. Future employers, current employers, family and friends can find anything they want about me if they look hard enough, so I mind my “P’s and Q’s” when it comes to posting.
Hitting “Tweet”, “Publish” or “Share” on the Internet is so much more instant than submitting to Editors and print publications. You have to be that much more careful with what you say and how you phrase it. Something that may sound like a joke in your mind may sound like a serious threat to another, such as the Obama Tweets.
I’m the same way; I think it’s really important to be careful on the Internet, especially since it’s so easy to publish anything, anytime, anywhere, people forget that they are doing just that, publishing.
Thanks for reading and commenting!