Prague – Tens of thousands of Czech Facebook users who joined a group that alleged it would donate financial support to Haitian earthquake victims had unwillingly become supporters of racist ideas as the group suddenly changed its description.
Aktuálně.cz learned about the con from its readers.
According to its original description, the group named „For every member, 10 CZK (0.40 EUR) will be sent to help Haiti“ was started by Czech entrepreneurs to help the Caribbean nation.
Soon, tens of thousands of Czech Facebook users joined the group - in the morning hours of Monday 19 January 2009, there were about 135 thousand registered.
“No reason to support an overpopulated species”
However, already on Saturday 18 January 2009, the alleged noble cause turned into a cynical joke and racist propaganda.
“Blacks are not an endangered, but rather overpopulated species. There is no single reason to support them,” the group founded by a user named Adéla Sobotková started to say on Sunday.
The author added her own alleged experiences with non-white inhabitants of other countries. “I myself have seen in France and England how terrible it is for whites to live in quarters inhabited by blacks, Arabs or Pakis. The idea that someday they start to breed less and experience demographic decrease caused by low birth rate as in the case of white people, is naïve,” the author said.
By 10:30 on Monday 19 January, the group appeared to be deleted.
Wanted an iPhone? Here, have a welfare state instead.
It is at least for the second time in the last weeks when tens of thousands of Czech Facebook users were conned by a group that suddenly changed its description.
The other recent case is of a Facebook group that promised some of its members would win iPhones. After roughly 70 thousand joined, the group was re-named, becoming a fan-site of Czech Social Democratic (ČSSD) leader Jiří Paroubek.
To fully understand the irony in this, it needs to be added that Paroubek is far from being popular among Czech Facebook users, a social group composed mostly of younger people, with numerous anti-Paroubek and anti-ČSSD groups on Facebook having tens of thousands of members. Famously, a wave of egg-throwing attacks on pre-election campaign meetings of the ČSSD in spring 2009 was organized via a Facebook group.
