Rage after Tucson shooting bleeds into social media
Joseph Starkloff
The Jan. 8 Tuscon shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, has drawn several forms of media attention. While major news networks have interviewed experts and family members of identified shooter Jared Loughner; the public has used internet social sites, such as Facebook, to voice their opinions of the situation.
Several of the Facebooks are named after the creators desired actions to be taken against Loughner.
Examples of these are “Sentence Jared Loughner to the Death Penalty,” “Hang Jared Loughner, “Execute Jared Loughner,” and “Hang Jared Lee Loughner with a Barbwire Noose til (sic) he’s Dead, Dead, Dead.”
These pages often contain fake events such as public hangings of Loughner, or comments that describe the manner in which Loughner should be killed.
“Flogging him to death would work . or even a little Chinese torture,” user Russell Wilmhoff posted.
One Loughner Facebook group listed the group description as “killing people is not okay,” but contained several posts that glorified his death.
They also contained several altered photos that compared or assimilated Loughner with conservative pundits such as Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck.
While a majority of these Facebook groups are violent in nature, a select few have focused solely on spreading information about Loughner.
Group “Jared Loughner, why’d he do it,” has had most of its posts dedicated to proving the 22-year-old identified shooter had no political motive, but groups such as these are in the minority.
