WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Secret Service said Thursday that a juvenile was behind a Facebook poll asking whether US President Barack Obama should be assassinated and no charges will be brought in the case.
"We identified the individual who posted this poll," said Ed Donovan, a Secret Service spokesman. "We interviewed them with their parents present.
"There was no intent on the part of this juvenile," Donovan told AFP. "We're just characterizing it as a mistake."
Facebook quickly removed the user-generated poll, which was titled "Should Obama be killed?" and offered answer choices of "Yes," "No," "Maybe," and "If he cuts my health care."
More than 750 Facebook users had reportedly cast votes by the time the poll was yanked from the wildly popular online social networking community.
The poll was created over the weekend using a third-party application that lets users conduct their own surveys, Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt told AFP earlier this week.
Facebook had to shut down the program to get rid of the Obama poll since surveys using the software were controlled by the outside developer.
The application will remain disabled until the developer assures Facebook there are policies and procedures for handling such concerns in the future, according to Schnitt.
