"If you guys were the inventors of the Gettysburg Address, you'd have invented the Gettysburg Address."

May 12, 2012 8:34 AM

Abraham Lincoln Filed a Patent for Facebook in 1845. Lincoln was requesting a patent for “The Gazette,” a system to “keep People aware of Others in the Town.” He laid out a plan where every town would have its own Gazette, named after the town itself. He listed the Springfield Gazette as his Visual Appendix, an example of the system he was talking about. Lincoln was proposing that each town build a centrally located collection of documents where “every Man may have his own page, where he might discuss his Family, his Work, and his Various Endeavors.”
posted by Fizz (17 comments total)

This is a hoax.
posted by notme at 8:37 AM on May 12, 2012 [3 favorites]

Update: Ok, I'm willing to call hoax on this one based on two things. 1) The first non-engraved photograph reproduced in a newspaper was in 1880, 35 years after the Springfield Gazette was alledgedly produced. 2) The Library of Congress says that the photograph pictured in the Gazette was taken in 1846 or 1847, a year or two after the publication date. That and the low-res "I couldn't take proper photos of them" images pretty much convinces me.

Update: And the proof...the original Springfield Gazette sans Lincoln.

posted by ericb at 8:38 AM on May 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

The Abe Lincoln Facebook-Patent Hoax and the Future of Innovation.
posted by ericb at 8:39 AM on May 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yeah, that has to be a scam. Lincoln absolutely would not have thought in terms of 'a page per person', much less restricting access to family and friends or whatever. Just would never happen in a paper world.
posted by Malor at 8:39 AM on May 12, 2012

Indeed, for was it not Dee himself who presented the goodly Queen Bess with the concept of a Her Majesty's Book Of Faces Being An Illustrated And Current INdex Of Most Noble And Cultivated Persons?
posted by The Whelk at 8:39 AM on May 12, 2012 [2 favorites]

Where's the part where he's going to track people all over the internet and sell private information to advertisers?
posted by DU at 8:39 AM on May 12, 2012

Abraham Lincoln Did Not Invent Facebook: How a Guy and His Blog Fooled the Whole Wide Internet.
posted by ericb at 8:39 AM on May 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Would Lincoln have renounced his citizenship to avoid a heavier tax burden?
posted by ericb at 8:41 AM on May 12, 2012

Did I miss this getting posted already? If so, feel free to remove this post.
posted by Fizz at 8:41 AM on May 12, 2012

* Mary Todd Lincoln: Enjoying Our American Cousin with Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theater.

* John Wilkes Booth likes this.
posted by Roentgen at 8:42 AM on May 12, 2012 [6 favorites]

Millard Fillmore did, however, Rickroll Congress in 1852.
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 8:43 AM on May 12, 2012 [6 favorites]

Mary Todd Lincoln has changed her status to : Insane.
posted by The Whelk at 8:43 AM on May 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Millard Fillmore did, however, Rickroll Congress in 1852.


I thought that was Mallard Fillmore.
posted by scalefree at 8:45 AM on May 12, 2012

Abraham Lincoln: Just freed teh slaves LOL
Jefferson Davis: YOU DICK
Abraham Lincoln: PROBLEM? trolololol
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 8:48 AM on May 12, 2012 [2 favorites]

Robert Todd Lincoln has signed at: William McKinley's invitation

UPDATE: William McKinley's has been shot.

Robert Todd Lincoln has updated: Oh God why does this keep happening?
posted by The Whelk at 8:55 AM on May 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Did I miss this getting posted already? If so, feel free to remove this post.

It's not a double. It's a hoax, but you seem not to have caught on.
posted by beagle at 8:56 AM on May 12, 2012

"The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it's hard to verify their authenticity."
--Abraham Lincoln
posted by monospace at 9:08 AM on May 12, 2012 [2 favorites]