CBS News reports on Monday that Sandy Hook tribute pages are getting the boot from Facebook. The social media site apparently has agreed to remove the pages related to the Elementary school shooting but it appears that it took a few politicians to make it happen.
Any Facebook user that has tried to reach the company with any questions or problems can testify that they don’t exactly make it easy and customer service is practically nonexistent.
Families who were affected by the tragedy had complained about the tribute pages and had concerns they were being exploited. Sen. Chris Murphy and Rep. Elizabeth Esty from Connecticut agreed. They went straight to the source and sent a letter to chief executive Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook on Monday morning requesting the removal of the offending pages.
Facebook prohibits users from creating accounts for anyone other than themselves but apparently the company has a hard time enforcing this.
The obvious offense would be people using these pages as scams to cheat people out of their hard earned cash. But, shockingly some of the pages have had derogatory posts that have been abusive to the victims and their families.
Some posts went as far as stating that the shootings were staged and that slain teacher Victoria Soto and others were simply actors. You can only imagine how Soto’s family feels about this.
Kaitlin Roig who is a first grade teacher at the school actually saved the lives of her young students as she locked them in a small bathroom and barricaded the door. Thankfully, she lived to tell about it.
A Facebook page was created and named, “Kaitlin Roig is a Hero." The average person would think that this was a kind gesture and may have been initially. There have certainly been plenty of nice comments posted on the page but as hard as it is to believe, there have been very abusive posts as well.
One reads, "Congratulations Kaitlin or whatever your name is. Now you're famous and got to meet the President. You ought to be ashamed of yourself."
All Sandy Hook related tribute or donation pages are not going to be removed, just the ones that are not authorized by the families.
There has been one fraud arrest connected to a Sandy Hook Facebook posting so far.
Senator Richard Blumenthal commented that "Facebook needs to follow its own rules, and enforce those rules."
Facebook seems to be keeping quiet for now.
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