The United States Secret Service is investigating an online poll which
asked whether people thought Barack Obama, the US president, should be
assassinated.
The poll, posted on the social networking site Facebook, was titled
"Should Obama be killed?" and offered answer choices of yes, no, maybe,
and "If he cuts my health care".
The survey was taken off the site on Monday, two days after it was launched.
"Once we found out about it, we worked with Facebook to have it removed," Malcolm Wiley, a Secret Service spokesman, said.
"We are certainly investigating; just like we would with any threat case."
More than 750 Facebook users had reportedly cast votes by the time
the poll was shut down. The breakdown of the responses was not
available.
The survey was created by an individual using a third-party
application that lets users conduct their own surveys, Barry Schnitt, a
Facebook spokesman, said.
"People were usually doing trivial polls like asking friends where
they should go for dinner or what they thought of a certain movie,"
Schnitt said.
"Then there was the offensive one created by an individual user."
"Of course we are offended by the content of the poll but
objectionable ideas are in the world and, unfortunately, manifest on
Facebook."
