Creative Commons

It is easy to turn this into an issue over First Amendment rights and a debate on the constitutionality of Facebook’s “Statement of Rights and Responsibilities,” but those are all surface issues.

What are the real questions we should be asking? Who are the right people to hold accountable? One million people clicking a “like” button on a social networking site promoting a death wish on the President - which some argue is just a joke - are not a force to be reckoned with.

Do these people even know why they are saying they hate President Obama? Judging from the social posts on the wall of the page that range from spam to users arguing back in forth, the obvious answer is no.

Instead of discussing the appropriateness of this page, we should be asking ourselves who are the major influences putting these ideas into more than 1 million users’ heads.

In April, the Facebook page made headlines for its controversial nature and its title: “DEAR LORD, THIS YEAR YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE ACTOR, PATRICK SWAYZIE. YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE ACTRESS, FARAH FAWCETT. YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE SINGER, MICHAEL JACKSON. I JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW, MY FAVORITE PRESIDENT IS BARACK OBAMA. AMEN.”

Many groups emerged in the media speaking out against the content of the page and the death wish it promoted. However, Facebook ruled the page was in accordance with its “Statement of Rights and Responsibilities,” and that the site was an offensive joke rather than hate speech.

Hate speech by definition is any form of communication that may incite violence or prejudicial action against or by a protected individual group. Under the First Amendment, it is within every citizens’ legal right to say whatever they want regardless of popularity.

However, some Facebook users were not pacified or pleased with Facebook’s decision and created their own group to petition the page. The founders of the petition page also started The Council for Accountability in Social Media (CASM) organization to counter hate speech on social media sites. The petition group has over 900,000 members and sent Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg a letter last week asking him to revisit the issue of the “Dear Lord” page’s rights on Facebook. The petitioners want Facebook to delete the page and permanently revoke membership to all users who have “liked” the page. Zuckerberg has yet to issue a response.

The creation of CASM alone addresses the bigger issue that isn’t being discussed by the media or among Facebook users. The fact that a few individuals created an organization to counter hate speech on the internet and lead a movement to have over 1 million Facebook users’ membership revoked speaks volumes. The power of people to unite and become a reckonable force is not to be taken lightly.

My main issue with CASM and its founders is that they are effectively adding to the smokescreen created by monied interests. These freedom of speech issues are mere proxies for large corporations buying the news. Billion dollar companies are promoting messages that are dominating the dialogue and are using freedom of speech to encourage citizens to push their interests and agendas. The more than a million users on that Facebook page are puppets on the string.

These corporations would like nothing more than to see a controversy over a Facebook page spewing ill will against the president, instead of having action driven people - like CASM's founders - looking closer at the ways in which their company is trying to control citizens’ freedoms.

The Koch brothers are prime examples of monied interests pushing one message to the people while they are masking a bigger plan that effectively hurts those people in the long run. The billionaire brothers have made a fortune off of the family oil business and are moving up the list on Forbes' 400 richest Americans.  The brothers are using their wealth to fund the right wing Tea Party movement and some critics say they have effectively “waged war against Obama.”

The Koch brothers recently donated $1 million to the campaign to end California’s landmark climate change law, AB32. They are joining forces with other leading oil companies to run grassroots ads that promote oil industry jobs and how a global warming law will increase unemployment rates. These arguments are untrue and unsubstantiated, yet grassroots organizations are lining up to produce and run ads that effectively help the oil industry go unregulated and be exempt from clean air rules. Clean air and stopping global warming are changes that are good for everyone, regardless of party affiliation.

Often times it is easy to let what may seem like important issues such as freedom of speech and attacks against our president sway us to one side of the issue or another due to party affiliation and beliefs. However, it is much better to look beyond the scope of an isolated incident to see if there are more players involved and other aspects to be considered. Sometimes, we peel back that layer we find there is more than meets the eye. 

 Reach Reporter Ariele Pratt here.

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