On Jan. 21, In-N-Out announced it would be closing its only Oakland outpost at the end of March. Chief operating officer Denny Warnick confirmed the news to SFGATE and put out a statement citing an “unsafe environment” as the reason for the closure.

Of course, everyone on the internet had an opinion on this announced closure. It even made an appearance at a California Senate race debate that included Rep. Barbara Lee, congresswoman for California’s 12th congressional district.

However, the most outspoken people on the internet always live in a Facebook group. The public group “In-N-Out Burger Enthusiasts” was the place for outspoken people with thoughts on the Oakland In-N-Out. It has over 137,000 members but is not affiliated in any official capacity with the fast food chain.

On Jan. 22, a member posted Warnick’s full statement with the title “RIP#193,” according to a screenshot taken by SFGATE. Shortly after posting, a moderator deleted the picture of the statement, turned off comments to the post and said, “Comments turned off because this specific topic gets out of hand very easily. Pay your respects to the store by clicking on a sad face or something. Thanks.” It is unclear what the comments said specifically that prompted the moderators to close the post, though there were 181 emoticon reactions on the screenshot.

The member who posted the original announcement wrote, “My apologies to admin, this was posted right before the ban.”

The ban that they are referring to was a graphic that said, “We won’t be allowing any posts that discuss the Oakland INO location. Too many people bring politics into the discussion and we are banning members without hesitancy. Read the rules!!”

When requesting to join the group, an abbreviated version of the rules states, “No spam, politics, or religious discussion. Keep the conversation INO relevant or you WILL be banned.” A full version of the rules goes more in depth.

A day later, another post from a moderator stated, “Please stop! No Oakland discussions — you’ve been warned!”

SFGATE reached out to Bruce Townsend, one of the moderators, who said, “We have found that posting about the closing of [the] Oakland restaurant almost immediately leads right into politics.

“So within one day, we as moderators decided to just remove the posts altogether. It’s too disruptive,” he continued. “I even tried to create a chatroom, a relatively new feature on Facebook … within less than a minute the discussion went immediately into bashing each other’s candidates.”

Townsend said they do not keep metrics that record the numbers of how many people have been banned. He also said the moderators try to give warnings before resorting to suspensions or bans. However, there was “a lot of hate,” he said. “People went nuts.”