Controversial Church's Next Picketing Project: Twitter HQ

Reverend Fred Phelps's Westboro Baptist Church plans to picket Twitter's San Francisco offices tomorrow at 5:30 p.m. PST. The Kansas-based church is picketing because it believes that "the people who run Twitter ... don't use their position & voice to warn a generation of rebels of the consequences of their rebellion."

The church knows how to get attention. It has been hit with a tsunami of criticism for picketing military funerals and waving signs that say things like "God Hates Fags" while claiming that America deserves its military losses because of its sins. Westboro even runs a website at Members will also be protesting several Jewish organizations — including the Anti-Defamation League — in the hours leading up to its visit to Twitter.

The church members will be tweeting about the Twitter HQ picketing rally as it happens. Don't be too quick to point out the irony on that. The Westboro schedule says: "Now that should get interesting, WBC member(s) Tweeting as they picket outside Twitter, Inc. Won't a black hole or something open in the space/time vortex?"

Remember: The church is neither protesting Twitter itself nor decrying it as a tool of human communication. Rather, it's picketing the HQ because the bigwigs at the company aren't using their places of power and influence to spread the word about the sins Westboro believes people commit and their expected consequences.

Presumably picketing Twitter will also get them some web and social media exposure. The old "all press is good press" idiom doesn't apply in this case, though; the exposure they're seeking will probably just draw more ire and lead to more marginalization.

[via ReadWriteWeb]

[img credit: harbor88]

Samuel Axon
