Anna Bligh appeals to Facebook chief over murdered Bundaberg girl

Renai LeMay
25 February 2010, 8:04 AM

The Queensland Premier has complained to Facebook's CEO over persistent obscene comments posted on Facebook tribute pages for murdered Bundaberg eight-year-old Trinity Bates.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has reportedly written to Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg (pictured), appealing to the social networking supremo for help in blocking offensive material from being posted on memorial sites for Queensland girl Trinity Bates.

Bates’ body was found earlier this week after her parents woke to discover her missing, with the investigation ongoing.

Multiple media outlets have reported that Bligh, angered over obscene messages being posted on the tribute sites for Bates, and another boy also murdered, Elliott Fletcher, had appealed directly to Zuckerberg via a letter to the CEO in the US.

“Within the Queensland community, there are growing calls for a broader debate on the challenges posed by the new media … And on this front, I seek your advice on what action Facebook intends to take to prevent a recurrence of these types of sickening incidents,” Blight reportedly wrote.

Communications minister Stephen Conroy also questioned Facebook’s security practices last week. “I think there is a situation where people take Facebook with an enormous amount of trust and they’ve got to clearly explain what went wrong with their security systems, how this was able to happen (and) importantly, how they’re going to ensure that this doesn’t happen again,” News Ltd newspapers reported him as saying.

Facebook only maintains a small presence in Australia, led by regional vice president Paul Borrud, who, it is understood, mainly focuses on sales opportunities in the region. Facebook’s infrastructure is believed to be hosted overseas.

It’s not the first time Facebook has suffered a run-in with Australian authorities over material posted on the site during a criminal investigation.

In February 2009, Facebook users ignored a court order which banned the publication of information (including his photo) concerning a suspect accused of starting a fire which killed 11 people in the state. Several groups were set up on Facebook to identify the suspect, but subsequently taken down after police requests.

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Tin (User):

Unfortunately you can't stop idiots being idiots. The only way Facebook could stop things like this is to simply shut down.

25 February 2010, 10:20 AM (3 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Raindog (New user):

There must be something in the water up there in Queensland. What on earth did people expect on a site open to the best and worst of the planets population. Facebook was never an appropriate place for any kind of memorial.

While the actions of the site vandals is deplorable, there is no way you can condone anyone posting a Facebook hate site under the guise of a memorial.
All responsible, the authors, the vandals and the inevitable out of their depth politicians, are behaving deplorably!

The real tragedy is the awful loss due to hideous death of a tiny girl gets lost amidst this self serving garbage. We have courts to decide innocence or guilt, and as much as I believe our courts often lack justice for victims, its preferable justice to ill informed loud-mouthed rabble by self appointed vigilantes.

Anyone who participates in any way with this kind of public mock-concern needs to take a good look at themselves and their real motives!

25 February 2010, 10:48 AM (3 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

x (New user):

Alright, so having looked at the pages... (and finally stopped laughing)
blah, blah, freedom of speech, etc.
don't expect facebook to be something it is not.

If you leave the page open, people will abuse it. It's (in)human nature.
If you don't like the pages, ask the page creators to rip them down.
Ask the page creators ot make it private or edit it. (good luck with that)

People really dissapoint me sometimes.
eat at maccas, you will get fat
don't look when you cross the road, you will die
go on the internet, you will get offended.
it's really not so complicated.

25 February 2010, 1:18 PM (3 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

K (New user):

A long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, there used to be something called NNTP newsgroups....

Nothing really new here, except for the fact that Facebook is shinier and more mainstream. The idiocy isn't new either - I think that began two million years ago and has persisted.

25 February 2010, 2:05 PM (3 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

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