How sick can people get?
I am totally sickened at the depths of depravity that mankind will sink in the name of humour!
This post is likely to spark off a debate on freedom of speech and civil liberties but to my mind people do NOT have the right to use other peoples misfortune and heartache as a source of humour and amusement.
OK so it goes like this, apparently back in November 2008 the Sun carried a big story about having managed to persuade the operators of Facebook to remove from its pages a group which existed simply to share sick jokes about dead babies.
Well, I didn’t know that such a group existed. but I do now, I have had it brought to my attention that such a group does exist on Facebook, in fact in my investigation, by searching for the term ‘dead baby jokes’ I found over 500 Groups and several dozen fan pages, some of which were campaign groups to see the offensive material removed but MOST were actually groups that existed simply to perpetuate this sick form of humour.
Now maybe for me the timing is bad, as a lovely couple from our church have just, last weekend, had the birth and death of their own child, he died after literally only minutes of being born, so I am a little sensitive BUT even if I were not so I think I, along with the vast majority of the human race would be disgusted at this kind of sick and sad humour.
There appears to be very little that can be done as an individual, it is not possible to communicate directly with Facebook over these sites except by reporting each and every site individually, for their sick content, this is time consuming to say the least and there is no guarantee that they will respond simply to the odd one or two complaints, as they are concerned about freedom of speech and not keen on censorship however if enough people actually complain about each group then I think that there is a possiblity of us getting them removed but it is possible that the groups will just start up again almost as soon as they are removed so it will be an ongoing battle.
What I am asking is that you each individually search for these groups nd report as many of them as possible for offensive comment, also, cna I ask that you write to the news media people, news papers, radio, TV and see if we can get enough momentum up to have these groups removed, it would be very simple for Facebook to implement some control over acceptable titles for groups and fan pages and if they make it difficult enough people just wont find such groups to take part in!
The following is the content of the e-mail that I have sent to the Sun:
Back in November 2008 you carried a news story about the fact that Facebook had got rid of a group set up to share jokes about dead babies, see http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/1898044/Facebook-dead-babies-jokes-banned.html for the story in question.
I have just had it brought to my attention that there are over 500 such groups and fan pages on the facebook site at the moment.
Are you able to, perhaps with the aid of your readers, put pressure on Facebook to remove each of these groups? Individually I can do very little but if every reader who is a facebook user searches for these groups, using the search box and reports each one individually for offensive comment, a simple but time consuming task, we might just put pressure on facebook to remove all these groups?
feel free to copy and paste this message into your own e-mail and send it to: talkback@the-sun.co.uk
Also, and I don’t ever do this but can I solicit your help in circulating this information as widely as possible? can I ask you to post this blog post to your twitter status and your facebook profile (there are links at the end of this post to make that easier) as well as forwarding it to others via e-mail, just copy and past the address of this message into an e-mail asking people to look at this.
I am not a scare monger I rarely forward on chain e-mails and messages I have investigated this and know that there really are such sick groups on Facebook, lets join together and see these sick groups shut down and show the sick people involved that we DO CARE about what’s going on! if we fail to act on this we are on a slippery slope to goodness knows where! PLEASE HELP TO GET RID OF THE SCUM! [houdini]
I am a 40+ y/o Christian.
I have been married to Joy since 1989 and we have 2 adopted children with special needs.
I am a photographer and work part time as Church Administrator for the church that I have been a member of for the past 25 (or more) Years
My interests include walking, food and people.
I write mainly about life with our kids and about depression, having suffered from depression pretty severely for some time.
But also write about my faith and do book/product reviews.
The views expressed in my blog posts are my own views, this is my place to express my views, they are not necessarily the views of anyone else connected with me or any organisation that I may represent.
Sometimes in my blog posts I may take an extreme stance or play 'devils advocate' in order to make a point, that is my style and sometimes I word things badly and it can be misunderstood or misrepresented, where this is the case or where I am in error in my comments I am always happy to post an apology or correction to the post, as a comment, please just let me know where you consider I am wrong and I will look at it and consider your views but if you do disagree with something I say you do have the right to respond, I will always approve comments to my blog posts, except where they are insulting, inflammatory or represent a personal attack on myself or anyone else, or where the comment is a 'spam' posting. I am always happy to publish comments which disagree with my own expressed views.
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have you read the bible dave? how many children get killed for no reason in that?
I agree there is never a good time for dead baby jokes.
But you look hard enough and you can find a reason to ban all comedy and jokes. There’s a comedian called Shappi Khorsandi who is Iranian (there are various videos on youtube) part of her stand up act is poking fun at her own ethnicity (Omid Dhajili is also iranian and does the same).
One of the jokes I told in sociology was “how many feminists does it take to change a lightbulb?” Okay not about dead babies but am I not insulting feminists. (Although at one point feminisim looked like a good option till I read about radical feminists)
If you get on a soapbox about everything people will switch off and stop reading. I get your point and where you are coming from but David – I’m going to stop reading if the rants carry on. I’m not saying change your writing style for me but just be aware of what you are posting. If its upsetting you don’t go searching specifically for these groups.
Hannah,
I will let my blog stats speak for themselves, my blog viewings has gone through the roof since I have been on the rant over issues that I feel are important and this particular post is rapidly heading to first place in most viewed blogs posts on my site.
I am not saying that I am going to rant for the sake of it but I am NOT going to stay silent when there is an issue that I feel strongly about, there is an old saying that says something like ‘Evil prospers when good men do nothing’ I refuse to be one of those good men who does nothing and stand by as evil prospers and grows, I may not have much effect but at least no one can accuse me of sitting back and doing nothing about these issues.
Sorry David I didn’t see this comment option here and I posted my comment on fb. If you want to delete it from your wall that’s ok. I should have done it here.
Judy
Judy’s Comment on my wall was:
The existence of such groups is a shock to me and I agree that it is horrifying to think such sick people live among us. However, I will not go and search for them since I have no wish to upset myself. Its not Facebook you need to talk to its the people who choose to join these groups. Sick people need healing not banning and condemnation. Freedom of speech is important enough that we have to live with these consequences. Its better they tell their jokes among themselves than telling them publicly, or actually harming a baby.
Trying to get through to the people that join these groups will succeed in nothing but insults, and even responses as serious as death threats. All threats are being reportd directly to FB, but that does not seem to be making a difference. And yes, we can all choose to not look and ignore the problem, but when these groups and pages are so easily accessible it is hard to not run accross them. ANYONE can view there pages. There is NO discretion in title or content. There is no age limit or warning. The LEAST that could be done is to require these pages to fall into th sme category as pornographic materials. (which apparently FB does not allow, but there are sexually referenced pictures of CHILDREN on these pages….) Everyone is entitled to their own opinions and to freedom speech, but you cross a line when you post jokes about EATING the corpse of an infant!
I belong to a group trying to convince FaceBook to remove this sick “humor” from their site. Now, the members of the “dead baby jokes” groups keep using Freedom Of Speech as their defense. That said, I do not think the Freedom Of Speech act covers IMAGES. Images of dead children, images of abuse, and sexually references images of REAL missing children. Caylee Anthony is shown in a sexually referenced photo on the group “Rude,Crude jokes-No limits”. This is child exploitation in myopinion, and so WRONG. I am infuriated, and have actually lost sleep thinking about the innocent little faces plastered in graphic, disgusting images all over FB!!! These sites are NOT private, there is no warning on most, andANYONE can acces these “jokes” and images. PLEASE,PLEASE help us do something to get them of FaceBook!
And to David- THANK YOU! thank you not only for this post and your support, but Thank You for postng these and helping increase awareness about this issue! God Bless you!