I use Facebook as an ersatz email service. That’s basically it. Once in a while I’ll post some comment, but that’s quite rare.
I get some guilty pleasure out of reading the comments left on the posts of my wingnut friends. One thing I’ve noticed is there are lot of threats back and forth to “de-friend” someone because one doesn’t like the other’s political or religious beliefs. WTF? Isn’t this sorta the equivalent of saying “meanie! Since I don’t like what you’re saying, I’m taking your name out of my Rolodex, burning the card on the stove, all so I can’t contact you ever again! So there!” Apparently de-friending someone can be seen as an act of war. Do they not realize you can just block their posts from your newsfeed?
Maybe it’s because I use FB to message people that I otherwise would have a hard time contacting, but I don’t get cutting someone off just because they like Hannity or Beck. Is there a point to this? Is it just immature idiots thinking they’re making a meaningful statement?
Why have them on your friends list in the first place if you’re just going to block their posts? Also, removing them from your friends means they can’t see anything you don’t want them to see anymore.
The people I’ve de-friended were more acquaintances than close friends. It’s usually because of obnoxious religious/political postings or just an effort to keep my friends list more manageable. But I’ve never “announced” that I’m de-friending someone, and I don’t see the point of doing so. It’s really no big deal.
Yeah, I had the same thing happen. A high-school friend works now for some absurd woo-woo health group, the kind that issues warnings about the dangers of flu vaccinations. I kept failing my saving throw against engaging (more with her super-idiot friends than with her), so I finally unfriended her. She wrote me a hurt letter apologizing for offending me and asking what was wrong; I ignored it, which may or may not have been kind, but sure was easier. That kind of drama just doesn’t do me any good.
Finding out that I am restricted is what has led me to “unfriending” a few peeps. I mean, what the fuck does someone want with me, if I am not even allowed to see or comment on anything that they post? Bye bye…
I have three rules for de-friending, none of which ever comes with a warning first. If you follow any of these, then I don’t need to hear from you again:
If you friend me but then ONLY send me requests for games (Farmville, and other crap) without ever posting anything.
If every post somehow ties in your political or religious views. Even if they agree with my own, I don’t ever advertise mine and think its lame you advertise yours
If you or your friends threaten me and it’s obvious you aren’t joking.
Number 3 is a tough one because it’s not always the fault of the person that their other friends are complete douchebags, but unless there are extenuating circumstances, it’s rare I will keep those people around. I got into a debate with an acquaintance regarding the Haiti earthquake and whether a cruise ship that came there (and brought relief supplies) should have stayed and did the port visit as planned. My feeling was “sure, it helps their economy in addition to satisfying the cruise itinerary”. Others felt it was inappropriate because of all the tragedy in the country at the time (that otherwise didn’t affect the private beach where the cruise planned to go). I had friended a gal who was a friend of my wife, and she was already on the ropes because of reason 2 (hardcore Democrat and atheist, posting about both on a daily basis). Then her other friends started threatening me over my views about this non-event saying they would beat the shit out of me if we ever met in real life. Uh, o.k., I don’t need to be friends with you and risk running into one of your other friends who wants to resort to violence over something as meaningless as a difference of opinion on a random world event.
Defriending and blocking are for two different purposes. The reason to block someone is if you just don’t want to see their feeds. For instance, I have family that post pretty much nothing but political stuff, I don’t want to see it, so I blocked their feeds. I don’t want to defriend them because they’re family and I would like to still let them check up on me or, if I’m so inclined, check up on them. Also, they don’t even know unless you tell them, so it avoids all that drama.
Defriending someone is when you not only don’t want to see their posts but you don’t want them to see yours. This makes a lot more sense if you end a friendship or relationship. Sure, they don’t get a notification, but they’ll know if they look for you as a friend and don’t see you on their list. I think it’s childish to threaten someone to do it, it’s just what you do when your relationship, in whatever capacity it is, with that person ends.
Anyway, if you’re just sick of someone’s religious and political stuff, avoid the potential drama of defriending them, especially if they’re friends with other friends of yours, and just block their feeds.
I have de-friended a friend once, because I realized he wasn’t a friend anymore in real life—we had drifted far apart and he wasn’t interested in putting in any effort. I have no idea if the person I de-friended knows, or even if he knows I no longer consider him a friend.
I got de-friended once (that I know of) because a former friend got really mad at me for not continuing to enable her depression. That’s the short version: I was at fault, too, in how I handled the situation. Again, it was a recognition that the real-life friendship had soured beyond recovery.
Childhood friends, distant relatives, acquaintances—I can’t see the point in de-friending them, because they don’t represent friendships, only acquaintanceships, and you still know who they are. People whose posts don’t interest me I hide, but they can still see my posts or contact me via facebook.
To my way of thinking, the second statement kinda answers the first, at least as to how I use FB
As I noted, I use FB as an email service. For example:
a) A cousin of mine (actually, my cousin’s husband) is a radical, totally batshit looney wingnut. Every single right-wing conspiracy theory that’s out there, he subscribes to. He litters his feed with quotes from Breitbart and Hannity, and links to conservapedia and Glenn Beck. I have no interest whatsoever in reading his propaganda.
However, he’s a nice guy if you kinda leave the politics out of it. He’s also in the military, stationed in Germany and FB is what he uses to communicate – AFAIK he doesn’t use email. So I keep him on my friends list. I can block his posts from appearing on my feed, so I have effectively defriended him without actually doing so. I can still contact him when I want to.
b) A woman I went to school with recently graduated. She’s been searching for a job for a while, and tends to post about it. She also posts those dumb someecards and hallmark card-like sayings with pics of flowers and Jesus. Gag me. So IkKeep her feed from showing up on mine. But I can still go to her timeline/wall/whatever and get a status report on her job search.
I rarely post to FB, and when I do obviously I don’t care who sees it. I don’t “like” pages, post pics, share news stories or play games. I use it to communicate, not pontificate.
I can sorta, maybe see the point of shitcanning someone if you found some friend you knew in first grade, then 37 years later found them on FB and after friending realized you had nothing in common and had no real reason to stay in contact. Obviously, if your college roommate recently was convicted of slipping the ol’ pork trombone to his 15yo daughter, then the hell with em’. That’s what defriending is for. I guess my take is that if you friend someone, then you did so for a reason. I don’t cut off people IRL (much) because of their political or religious beliefs, why do it FB?
How do you find out if you’re restricted? I assume you mean that your posts are blocked by someone else? How can you tell? I know a couple of people who have blocked me, but I assume that’s not what you’re talking about. Even when I have someone blocked from my feed, I can still go to their page and comment, and they can comment on mine.
I’m talking about when someone has restricted you from being able to comment on their posts. I didn’t really clarify that very well, sorry. Obviously, you find that out when you attempt to comment.
I’ve only had to de-friend somebody once. Actually, I didn’t even actually know the guy - he was friends with one of my younger (as in “young enough to be my son”) coworkers who was on my friend list, and as far as I can tell he only sent me a friend request because we have the same birthday.
Anyway, while my co-worker was a decent kid (he eventually went off and joined the Marines), it soon became clear that this other guy was considerably further behind in the maturity/think-before-acting department. He was constantly sending out mass-invites to “events” that were just stupid, stupid, stupid. Stuff like, “let’s all go to such-and-such park in the middle of the night and fight!” I just ignored those.
Then one day I got a notice that he had commented on one of my photos. It was a photo of me sitting next to my niece at my sister’s house. His comment was something like, “How old is she?” I answered, “Nine”. He responded, “LOL I guess I’ll have to wait a few years LOL”.