President Obama is working on his personal Facebook page, launched this week, eagerly reaching out for more comments from the public.
“I hope you’ll think of this as a place where we can have real conversations about the most important issues facing our country – a place where you can hear directly from me, and share your own thoughts and stories,” he said.
The comments he received on his post were overwhelmingly positive, welcoming, and flattering. In a sample of the top 3,000 comments on his first Facebook post showed that the word “welcome” was used 1,761 times, the phrase “thank you” was used 1,487 times.
The word “love” was used over 400 times and the word “proud” was used over 300 times.
“I am SO proud of you and absolutely adore you!” wrote user Laura Storm Garcia. “Thank you for every positive thing you have accomplished so far in your tenure as POTUS!!! You have been outstanding, and I am extremely pleased and thrilled to see what’s next!”
“Thank you also for leading by example-with intelligence, dignity, grace and calm,” wrote Facebook user Renee Hausenflock. “How you and your gorgeous family deal with the constant barrage of negativity is beyond me. You do this country proud and yes, I would vote for you for a third term!!!!”
Any racist, nasty, hateful speech, often found on social media, is nowhere to be seen.
In fact the only use of the word “hate” in the top 3,000 comments on his page was about 20 of his biggest fans warning him about the “haters” that existed on Facebook.
“Unfortunately this will be a new venue to you for the haters, the racists and the not so well informed,” fretted Facebook user Stu Rhodes. “Pay no attention to them.”
“I hope that you are thick skinned though,” warned Facebook user Tom Goering. “Great that you are now on Facebook now, I’m sure the crazies and the haters out there will surface from their stench of negativity.”
How is the White House keeping the Facebook conversation so clean when it involves the controversial leader of the free world?
An administration official revealed that President Obama’s Facebook page was using filters provided by Facebook to enhance the conversation on his page.
“The White House and POTUS Facebook pages are official White House channels and utilize tools offered by Facebook to promote constructive conversation, including filters for profanity and relevancy of comments,” an administration official said in response to a question from Breitbart News.
The official added that the White House “encourages active conversation and debate on its social media channels” and that Obama’s new media team does not delete comments from the president’s social media profiles.
“The White House does not remove comments or add words to a block list,” the official stated.
That’s not to say Obama is entirely protected from critics, as some of the so-called “haters” filtered through the list of top comments.
One of the few critical comments on the page refer to the president as a “dummy.”
“Hey! dummy we have been in a global warming for the last 10,000 years, nothing will stop it, talk about the real issues,” wrote Facebook user Sharon Harris.
Another rare negative commenter encouraged Obama “to do the right thing and resign.”
“You blatant attempt to fundamentally change America into a Socialist country is Treasonous,” the user wrote. “There must be another country somewhere far far away that would welcome you and your racially divisive ilk.”
It appears, however, that Facebook is a “safer” place for Obama online than Twitter, which does not filter the comments.
After Obama launched his personal Twitter account in May it was quickly filled with nasty comments from multiple social media users who employed racist language.
“Unfortunately, those kinds of images and that kind of language is all too common on the Internet,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said, after reporters asked him about the hate directed at the president on Twitter.
Earnest indicated that the White House staff would probably not block people on Twitter or try to filter the accounts.
“My guess is that if we spent a lot of time trying to block those kinds of messages, we’d probably spend a lot of time blocking people on the Internet,” he said.
The White House subsequently posited in a statement that Obama’s Twitter account would not “block” anyone on Twitter.
“Nobody is or has ever been blocked from the @POTUS Twitter account,” wrote White House Assistant Press Secretary Frank Benenati on Twitter.
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