Friday, December 19, 2014

Cyber Bullying On Facebook

The other day I posted an article from the Associated Press concerning the Sandy Hook school shooting and the new lawsuit filed by some of the parents against the Bushmaster Firearms corporation. I can't remember on which page it was.

According to one Facebook reader, the picture that the AP posted with the article was a picture from another, earlier article and was not connected with the actual subject of the article.

That person read the article and saw the picture and apparently was greatly offended by the fact that the picture did not accurately go with the article – so much so that he demanded I remove it. I attempted to explain to him that neither the picture nor the article was mine – that I had posted an Associated Press article, but he still insisted that I remove it.

This morning I noticed a message in my “Other” inbox. I opened that inbox and lo and behold there were two private messages from that person instructing me, actually threatening me if I did not remove the post as he instructed me to do. He sent them on December 15th.

Here are the actual messages:

the photo you posted with the officer holding the ar15 has nothing at all to do with sandyhook, please check your facts before you post them, people will really believe what other people post, thank you Sir.

Look, i already made it clear to you that this photo you posted is NOT related to the school shootings. Either you remove it now or i will be reporting you for posting an intentional lie for the purpose of creating a problem and your account will get suspended for an unknown amount of time. Thank you, Sir.

At least he was polite so naturally I removed the post at his demand... not. I perused his FB page and my response was as follows:

Who do you think you are to tell me what I can post and what I can't? Did someone appoint you the Facebook police? I posted an article that was put out by the Associated Press. If you don't like the article report them. Take your self righteousness somewhere else.

By the way - the video you posted that is supposedly Michael Brown beating up an old man is clearly not him. Besides - the video is a couple of years old and the incident happened in Texas. Are you posting deliberate lies to cause problems? Perhaps I should report you for that so your Facebook account can be indefinitely suspended...? Moron.


I don't normally get irritated by people on Facebook but the nerve of someone I don't know who decides to send me a private message and tell me what to do was more than I could ignore.

I have no idea if he followed through with his threat to report me. I would guess he probably did. But since my Facebook account hasn't been suspended it is also my guess that the people at Facebook weren't anymore impressed with him than I was. Some people simply believe they are better than others and/or think they must get their own way. Here's a word of advice for that person – perhaps you should avoid trying to bully people on the internet. You're not very good at it.


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