GoFundMe Shuts Down Comments on Darren Wilson Support Page
GoFundMe has disabled comments on the donation page started in support of Darren Wilson—which as of this writing has crossed $215,000—a day after the internet took notice of it becoming a hub of racism.
The company announced at 1:10 a.m. last night that it had removed comments "in violation of GoFundMe's terms."
In regard to the 'Officer Darren Wilson' campaign, donors' comments posted in violation of GoFundMe's terms have been removed.
— GoFundMe (@gofundme) August 22, 2014
Pressure has been mounting on GoFundMe to address Wilson's page, and the comments had clearly become a problem, partly because they were starting to be obviously trolled. The primary source of the trolling appears to be 4chan, whose users were leaving comments in the names of Twitter users speaking out against the page, as well as people like Hitler and Elliot Rodger. This massive and barely comprehensible collage of screenshots traces some of that trolling.
All this said, it doesn't appear that GoFundMe has any plans to shut the page down entirely despite numerous people on Twitter pointing out that the Wilson fund seems to violate the company's terms of use.
.@gofundme your terms and conditions are pretty clear on this. shut down the darren wilson supporters fund pic.twitter.com/v24g0s0eKs
— alex (@taint_chakra) August 22, 2014
GoFundMe has wiggle room here—Wilson hasn't been charged with a crime, and by disabling and erasing comments it can argue that the page isn't explicitly promoting "hate, violence, [or] racial intolerance." But one has to wonder at what point GoFundMe will decide that assuaging both sides of the Mike Brown debate isn't worth it.