# Preventing family and friends from "following" what I comment on Facebook **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 30, 2016, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/preventing-family-and-friends-from-following-what-i-comment-on-facebook/758756 "2016-06-30T03:09:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2016, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/preventing-family-and-friends-from-following-what-i-comment-on-facebook/758756/21 "2016-07-01T15:49:01Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Fair enough, mad might have been too strong of a term. Still can’t figure out why someone would be upset because friends and family saw a posting on a site that allows you to share postings with friends and family, but whatever. > > Don’t post stuff you wouldn’t want your friends and family to see seems like a good alternative. Notice the underline? It’s not allowing. It’s requiring. It’s taking your post and trying to gin up interest with other people, people you don’t know, in order to get a little more ad income. They will not switch from requiring to allowing because most people would opt out. My objection is that it’s clogging up my feed and making checking on friends and family into a slog. It’s jamming my feed with things that none of my friends or family posted or shared. Remember sharing? If you wanted to share something, you shared it with one click. Now liking and commenting has been hijacked into sharing because we can’t be trusted to manage our feed in a way that will maximize their profits. They know they’re shaking the jar, but they don’t care. It’s scummy. It’s an insult. I know where the share button is and don’t need anyone co-opting my choice on whether to use it. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2016, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/preventing-family-and-friends-from-following-what-i-comment-on-facebook/758756/22 "2016-07-01T15:51:05Z")
Don’t post on Facebook, then. I really don’t understand the compulsion and… techno-driven push to expose our whole lives to everyone on the net. We pretty much all have compartmented lives, and the idea of dumping all our activities, details, thoughts and feelings onto a single indiscriminate global billboard should be anathema to most people. The number of stories of people who freely posted shit about their lives and then were shocked, shocked I tell you when mom or the boss or the wife or the ex or a prospective company found it are way too plentiful. Facebook is evidence that most people can’t really think their actions through. Or, put a period after think. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2016, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/preventing-family-and-friends-from-following-what-i-comment-on-facebook/758756/23 "2016-07-01T15:53:16Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Well, that’s what I don’t get. WHY are you commenting on these things if you don’t want anybody to see it? Everyone in the entire world can see your comment on the LGBTQ page, but somehow having people who are family and who are supposed to be your friends see your comments is somehow making you annoyed? Notice the underline. Sure someone might see it if they went to that site. There’s a big difference between that and having Facebook take your comment and spam everyone in your address book, just to boost their ad income. That’s them shaking the jar to see if they can get some flame wars going, to further boost their income. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2016, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/preventing-family-and-friends-from-following-what-i-comment-on-facebook/758756/24 "2016-07-01T17:25:48Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > Notice the underline. Sure someone might see it if they went to that site. There’s a big difference between that and having Facebook take your comment and spam everyone in your address book, just to boost their ad income. That’s them shaking the jar to see if they can get some flame wars going, to further boost their income. If a friend of mine likes a page, and their “like” shows up in my feed, so what? How does that boost ad income? ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2016, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/preventing-family-and-friends-from-following-what-i-comment-on-facebook/758756/25 "2016-07-01T17:28:26Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > Notice the underline? It’s not allowing. It’s requiring. No shit. If I like a page, I would expect my friends and family to see that I like it. I’m still not sure why this is so surprising. Else why would I like anything? To let the Guns N Roses page know that manson1972 likes them? ---
**Author:** ![Jumpbass](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jumpbass/32/147_2.png) [@Jumpbass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jumpbass)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2016, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/preventing-family-and-friends-from-following-what-i-comment-on-facebook/758756/26 "2016-07-01T17:31:23Z")
I don’t particularly care if someone else can see that I commented on or liked a post. I take care not to put up anything I don’t want the world to know. What I do dislike is being told that one of my friends commented on or liked a post I don’t give a hearty handshake about. So and so likes Sears? Who cares? ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2016, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/preventing-family-and-friends-from-following-what-i-comment-on-facebook/758756/27 "2016-07-01T17:32:06Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > Notice the underline. Sure someone might see it if they went to that site. There’s a big difference between that and having Facebook take your comment and spam everyone in your address book, just to boost their ad income. That’s them shaking the jar to see if they can get some flame wars going, to further boost their income. The person or the other group controls who sees their Facebook page. What, you want to control the distribution of anybody else’s page you post to? It doesn’t work like that and it shouldn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2016, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/preventing-family-and-friends-from-following-what-i-comment-on-facebook/758756/28 "2016-07-01T17:45:34Z")
> [@Jumpbass](#): > > What I do dislike is being told that one of my friends commented on or liked a post I don’t give a hearty handshake about. So and so likes Sears? Who cares? Because THEY want you to know that they like Sears, that’s why they liked it in the first place! 🙂 Also, do friend’s comments on other people posts who AREN’T your friends show up in your feed? They don’t for mine. (hope that made sense) ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2016, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/preventing-family-and-friends-from-following-what-i-comment-on-facebook/758756/29 "2016-07-01T17:50:58Z")
> [@Jumpbass](#): > > What I do dislike is being told that one of my friends commented on or liked a post I don’t give a hearty handshake about. So and so likes Sears? Who cares? Bad example. Nobody likes Sears. ---
**Author:** ![bobkitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c67d28/32.png) [@bobkitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobkitty)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2016, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/preventing-family-and-friends-from-following-what-i-comment-on-facebook/758756/30 "2016-07-01T18:09:16Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Because THEY want you to know that they like Sears, that’s why they liked it in the first place! 🙂 > > Also, do friend’s comments on other people posts who AREN’T your friends show up in your feed? They don’t for mine. (hope that made sense) Yes, they do. Let’s say I have a friend named Adam. Adam has a friend named Bob. Bob and I are not friends and have no connection at all. Adam comments on a post from Bob wherein Bob laments his health issues and impending divorce. Bob’s post and Adam’s comment show up on my news feed. I go to Bob’s page to figure out why I should care about this guy, and his profile is locked tight- no posts show up for me, because we aren’t friends. Yet there it is, in my newsfeed. It goes back to the example I gave earlier; this literally just happened on my feed. Poster A posts on his timeline that he’s taking a new job. Poster B comments “congrats!!!” Poster C, who is friends with Poster B, sees Poster A’s post/Poster B’s comment in their news feed. Poster C is Poster A’s supervisor, who doesn’t know A has been job hunting- whoops. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2016, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/preventing-family-and-friends-from-following-what-i-comment-on-facebook/758756/31 "2016-07-01T18:18:05Z")
> [@bobkitty](#): > > Yes, they do. Let’s say I have a friend named Adam. Adam has a friend named Bob. Bob and I are not friends and have no connection at all. Adam comments on a post from Bob wherein Bob laments his health issues and impending divorce. Bob’s post and Adam’s comment show up on my news feed. Not that I doubt what you are seeing, but if this was true for all friends, all you would see in your news feed would be comments that your friends posted on OTHER peoples pages. The amount of comments that your list of friends made on THEIR friends pages would be astronomical if they all appeared in your newsfeed. > [@](#): > > It goes back to the example I gave earlier; this literally just happened on my feed. Poster A posts on his timeline that he’s taking a new job. Poster B comments “congrats!!!” Poster C, who is friends with Poster B, sees Poster A’s post/Poster B’s comment in their news feed. Poster C is Poster A’s supervisor, who doesn’t know A has been job hunting- whoops. This does seem like a problem. Not sure how that would get fixed. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2016, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/preventing-family-and-friends-from-following-what-i-comment-on-facebook/758756/32 "2016-07-01T18:21:29Z")
> [@bobkitty](#): > > It goes back to the example I gave earlier; this literally just happened on my feed. Poster A posts on his timeline that he’s taking a new job. Poster B comments “congrats!!!” Poster C, who is friends with Poster B, sees Poster A’s post/Poster B’s comment in their news feed. Poster C is Poster A’s supervisor, who doesn’t know A has been job hunting- whoops. Actually, I just tested this, and it seems to happen ONLY if Poster A’s page is public (using your scenario). So if their page is public, they shouldn’t get annoyed if general members of the public see stuff on their page even their current boss. ---
**Author:** ![bobkitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c67d28/32.png) [@bobkitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobkitty)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2016, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/preventing-family-and-friends-from-following-what-i-comment-on-facebook/758756/33 "2016-07-01T18:55:41Z")
I don’t know how FB decides when you do and don’t see rando-person’s post on your feed, but I assure you it’s not just limited to those who have their profiles as public. The most recent example is of a guy whose page is locked up tighter than Ft Knox. My page is decidedly not public (I have multiple friends filters that I use and never, ever use the FB categories), and I’ve had it happen. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2016, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/preventing-family-and-friends-from-following-what-i-comment-on-facebook/758756/34 "2016-07-01T19:00:27Z")
> [@bobkitty](#): > > The most recent example is of a guy whose page is locked up tighter than Ft Knox. My page is decidedly not public (I have multiple friends filters that I use and never, ever use the FB categories), and I’ve had it happen. Well, this would seem to imply that a page that is “locked up tighter than Ft. Knox” is not locked up at all, since it is trivially easy to let other people look at everything on his page. You could “like” every single photo on his page, and then all YOUR friends could see the photos. ---
**Author:** ![spamforbrains](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@spamforbrains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spamforbrains)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2016, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/preventing-family-and-friends-from-following-what-i-comment-on-facebook/758756/35 "2016-07-01T19:41:37Z")
> [@](#): > > I don’t know how FB decides when you do and don’t see rando-person’s post on your feed, but I assure you it’s not just limited to those who have their profiles as public. agree. it seems to be almost random, and it’s very annoying. I only want to see what friends post on their timelines. I don’t ever want to see anything else. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2016, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/preventing-family-and-friends-from-following-what-i-comment-on-facebook/758756/36 "2016-07-01T19:48:04Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > My best friend keeps posting awful things on awful political threads that are a total 180 from my political views. > > I would have continued to be blissfully unaware that he even had political opinions, until Facebook laid it all out on the table for us. It’s been a contentious year. > > The first time I noticed this feature of Facebook was when a somewhat naughty post from a Hot Black Lesbians page showed up in my feed. One of my friends - who is a hot black lesbian herself - had liked the post and Facebook was telling me. I immediately felt bad for her because, well, who does she know that might get super mad at that? Two things to realize about Facebook and real life. 1. Assume everything on Facebook is 100% public. 2. since people aren’t part of a Borg like collective different opinions are a feature not a bug. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2016, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/preventing-family-and-friends-from-following-what-i-comment-on-facebook/758756/37 "2016-07-01T19:49:51Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > No shit. If I like a page, I would expect my friends and family to see that I like it. I’m still not sure why this is so surprising. Else why would I like anything? To let the Guns N Roses page know that manson1972 likes them? No. If you wanted your friends and family to see it, you’d share it. > [@Slash1972](#): > > Because THEY want you to know that they like Sears, that’s why they liked it in the first place! 🙂 > > Also, do friend’s comments on other people posts who AREN’T your friends show up in your feed? They don’t for mine. (hope that made sense) No - if they wanted me to know they liked Sears, they’d have shared it. Sharing shares. Liking gets randomly hijacked to put more eyes on more posts so that Facebook can charge higher rates for their ads. That is, not all likes get passed on. And, yes, friend’s comments on complete stranger’s posts show up. > [@Slash1972](#): > > Well, this would seem to imply that a page that is “locked up tighter than Ft. Knox” is not locked up at all, since it is trivially easy to let other people look at everything on his page. You could “like” every single photo on his page, and then all YOUR friends could see the photos. I hadn’t thought of that, but that’s another crappy result of the practice. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2016, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/preventing-family-and-friends-from-following-what-i-comment-on-facebook/758756/38 "2016-07-01T20:34:08Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > The first time I noticed this feature of Facebook was when a somewhat naughty post from a Hot Black Lesbians page showed up in my feed… Well, now I’m rethinking my decision to never get on social media… ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2016, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/preventing-family-and-friends-from-following-what-i-comment-on-facebook/758756/39 "2016-07-01T20:47:58Z")
> [@spamforbrains](#): > > agree. it seems to be almost random, and it’s very annoying. I only want to see what friends post on their timelines. I don’t ever want to see anything else. Have you checked out MySpace? ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2016, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/preventing-family-and-friends-from-following-what-i-comment-on-facebook/758756/40 "2016-07-01T21:35:09Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > No. If you wanted your friends and family to see it, you’d share it. No, I wouldn’t. I would “like” it because I assume when I “like” something, my friends and family could see that I “like” it, because why the hell else would I “like” something? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/preventing-family-and-friends-from-following-what-i-comment-on-facebook/758756.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/preventing-family-and-friends-from-following-what-i-comment-on-facebook/758756.md?page=3)