# Should I de-friend wingnuts? (FB etiquette question) **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 19, 2012, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-de-friend-wingnuts-fb-etiquette-question/644563 "2012-12-19T19:52:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-de-friend-wingnuts-fb-etiquette-question/644563/41 "2012-12-21T15:23:52Z")
> [@Hottius\_Maximus](#): > > I don’t do Facebook but I have to ask: If the lefties were posting similar comments on that side of the spectrum, are you saying that you wouldn’t be bothered by it because you AGREE with them? Not to be rude, but isn’t diversity of thought and opinion considered a virtue on the left? My tolerance level is higher, obviously, because what they’re saying doesn’t piss me off. I only get pissed off when I disagree with someone.\* That makes sense. That said, I did defriend one guy because he was too left-radical even for me. It wasn’t the radical-ness so much as the anger and cynicism. Every step of progress toward his cause was never good enough. He was a very angry young man. A lot of my lefty friends are posting pro gun-control shit constantly and it’s getting on my nerves. What bothers me the most about it, really, is that people make these pictures/statements like they’re saying something profound or like it’s somehow the final statement on the matter. These are very complex issues and it irks me that people think they can be boiled down into a single sentence or a single solution. A single statistic, assuming it’s even true, is not a coherent argument. \*I’m not saying i get pissed off every time I disagree with someone. I’m saying given two equally inflammatory statements, one being from my POV and the other from a differing POV, the one with the differing POV is going to piss me off, whereas the one from my POV will usually only make me roll my eyes. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-de-friend-wingnuts-fb-etiquette-question/644563/42 "2012-12-21T15:39:25Z")
I actually agreed with something my aunt reposted from The Tea Party’s page… and I actually liked it and commented that I couldn’t believe I actually liked something that the Tea Party posted. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-de-friend-wingnuts-fb-etiquette-question/644563/43 "2012-12-21T16:35:21Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > I actually agreed with something my aunt reposted from The Tea Party’s page… and I actually liked it and commented that I couldn’t believe I actually liked something that the Tea Party posted. 😃 Now I want to know what it was! ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-de-friend-wingnuts-fb-etiquette-question/644563/44 "2012-12-21T16:40:13Z")
For me, it’s not so much that I disagree with a political statement (although that’s part of it), it’s when the person just spews factually incorrect right wing nonsense: the kind of crap you can tell they’re just repeating from Fox. I just call them on statements that are factually incorrect and ask them to provide sources for their more outrageous claims. That’s usually enough for them to drop me as a ‘friend.’ ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-de-friend-wingnuts-fb-etiquette-question/644563/45 "2012-12-21T17:03:40Z")
> [@Covered\_In\_Bees](#): > > Just defriend them for fuck’s sake. Or set your feed settings to never show their posts. Dead on. If someone keeps shitting on my FB posts, they get defriended. If they merely post consistently stupid stuff, their posts get hidden. To date, I have never regretted a single defriending. ---
**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:** [December 21, 2012, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-de-friend-wingnuts-fb-etiquette-question/644563/46 "2012-12-21T17:38:33Z")
Irrelevant, sorry, but every time this thread catches my eye in the list, I see it as “deep fried wingnuts.” Make of it what you will. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-de-friend-wingnuts-fb-etiquette-question/644563/47 "2012-12-21T18:00:48Z")
> [@NitroPress](#): > > Irrelevant, sorry, but every time this thread catches my eye in the list, I see it as “deep fried wingnuts.” Make of it what you will. Glad I’m not the only one. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-de-friend-wingnuts-fb-etiquette-question/644563/48 "2012-12-21T18:59:32Z")
> [@Dave\_Hartwick](#): > > I don’t suppose anybody wants to help me vandalize [this one?](https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/532367_403322686413776_785884994_n.jpg) Maybe something about having a well armed militia got them to the top? ---
**Author:** ![Moonchild](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@Moonchild](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonchild)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-de-friend-wingnuts-fb-etiquette-question/644563/49 "2012-12-21T19:55:25Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Good thing these friends don’t seem to have that concern. lol. Do you have any left-leaning wing nut friends? One FB friend – a producer who’s child went to preschool with mine – wouldn’t be considered a wingnut based on his depth, but _would_ be based on his breadth (i.e. how often he posts) I fild mildly annoying. Another – a fraternity brother/roommate we nicknamed Stoner Dave and is now a preschool teacher – has been posting pretty rabidly since the Newtown massacre and he doesn’t bother me at all. I wouldn’t quite call him a left wingnut, but then, it gets tricky based my own point of view. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-de-friend-wingnuts-fb-etiquette-question/644563/50 "2012-12-21T21:11:45Z")
> [@olivesmarch4th](#): > > Now I want to know what it was! My guess: a picture of a cat wearing a tricorne hat, captioned “I CAN HAS FLAT TAX?” ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-de-friend-wingnuts-fb-etiquette-question/644563/51 "2012-12-21T22:11:27Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > My guess: a picture of a cat wearing a tricorne hat, captioned “I CAN HAS FLAT TAX?” Now I want to see the picture! ---
**Author:** ![Dave\_Hartwick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@Dave\_Hartwick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dave_Hartwick)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2012, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-de-friend-wingnuts-fb-etiquette-question/644563/52 "2012-12-28T08:28:41Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Maybe something about having a well armed militia got them to the top? I sometimes wonder whose guns 2nd helpings think Hitler confiscated. Poland and France, maybe. [I wound up using pictures of famous gun victims.](https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/393099_4570207130975_602642349_n.jpg) I think this approach may help, actually. I’ve been getting a lot fewer gun memes in my feed. It’s probably just the passage of time, though. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2012, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-de-friend-wingnuts-fb-etiquette-question/644563/53 "2012-12-28T09:09:25Z")
I don’t mind anyone’s politics on personal level and while a lot of my Facebook friends post political memes, none of them are assholes about it. I’d personally just ignore their objectionable posts (if you want to delete them from your feed, fine, but only if you aren’t interested in their non-political statuses or whatnot). ---
**Author:** ![Hottius\_Maximus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Hottius\_Maximus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hottius_Maximus)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-de-friend-wingnuts-fb-etiquette-question/644563/54 "2013-01-02T13:37:30Z")
> [@Moonchild](#): > > Good question – and I wrote that in the OP for full disclosure because I find myself just not all that offended by left-leaning statements. I have tried to avoid a political slant (I have not been an member of either party for some time), but I find myself more often – okay, MUCH more often – agreeing with the left. I agree with with you in principle about the diversity of thought/opinion, but it’s the way these posts present such a ridiculously slanted truth and always provided with a dollop of nastiness that bugs me. _Of course_, this is from my POV – so when I say it’s nasty or slanted, that is, of course, how I percieve it. In other words, have I already been persuaded in one directions by what you would might call the liberal media? I say “no, I don’t think so,” but maybe that’s because I have already been “brainwashed.” (More full disclosure: my primary source of news is SDMB!) > > My first reaction (well, it used to be) when I would see one of these posts is about what you inqure about: “Whatever. It’s your right to post what you want,” etc. But I’ve just lost patience with the barrage. And if you were on FB, you’d know that it’s a barrage. > > If it helps, the FB post that created the tipping point that lead me to start this thread was a political cartoon of four monkeys: the first three – named ABC, NBC & CBS – were identified as See No Truth, Hear No Truth, Speak No Truth. The fourth was a monkey turned around backwards named MSNBC and the caption read “Absolutely Ignore the Truth.” And it just set me off and I replayed it in my pea brain for the next 30 minutes while I was making my son’s lunch. I’m just like, "Are you f\*\*\*ing kidding me? You leaving out a certain network by any chance? There should be a fifth monkey with its head up its ass, if you know what I mean. And really, that shouldn’t even have been considered that bothersome of a cartoon. It. Just. Really. Bugged me. I thank you for the full disclosure and intelligent discussion here. I lean toward the right on most (not all) issues and I feel the same way that you described when I see the slanted one-sided presentations that I see regularly in “Doonesbury” and many Hollywood movies and so-called documentaries, and YES what I perceive to be in the left leaning mainstream media. Funny thing, my wife (who is slightly left of center although not left enough for many of her contemporaries) often gripes about FOX News, which brings up my comment about the cartoon you found so offensive. First of all as I often tell my wife: FOX News and Talk Radio wouldn’t even EXIST if the mainstream media did its damn job and just reported the news instead of slanting it. The reason FOX News and talk radio picked up so many adherents is because those of us on the right got sick and tired of seeing left leaning editorializing that so often passes itself off as journalistic reporting. I can easily see how you would be offended by that, and I don’t deny that YES the Fox News Network was foolishly left out of that cartoon. However, please remember that what you felt by watching that cartoon is how I often feel when I would see slanted news presented as hard news. I’ll give you an example; our local newspaper has a left leaning balance that it generally denies because so many left wingers will criticize its reporting as well. Okay so the local paper vehemently opposes capital punishment, and a few years ago there was a LARGE FRONT PAGE HEADLINE reading how our state “MAY HAVE EXECUTED AN INNOCENT MAN!” It was a very lengthy article; buried somewhere about 1/8 of the way from the bottom of the second page of this lengthy article was one sentence that mentions that the executed convict had actually murdered somebody else years earlier, but the murder of this victim was not the crime he had been executed for and thus “may have been innocent of committing.” Well I actually phoned the reporter and confronted him politely saying “if I didn’t know better, I would say that this article is an example of liberal bias.” The reporter said and I quote: “Sir, you would have a legitimate argument there.” I replied that if the reporting was supposed to be simply stating the facts without a slant then it sure appeared biased to which the reporter replied by repeating himself! Later on the prosecutor on this particular case wrote a rebuttal that was published in the editorial column but NOT on the front page. Okay maybe the rebuttal didn’t belong on the front page but NEITHER did this obvious piece of slanted yellow journalism! Finally I would like to add something else that I told my wife. Unlike liberals, the conservatives generally don’t gripe about the lack of diversity in our lives and are generally fine with associating with other conservatives. Her left leaning contemporaries often get offended by politically incorrect things, including ME! However one particular leftist goes on and on about how wonderful diversity is, yet when I bring up diversity of thought and opinion she immediately goes into name-calling. For example, to her (at least for awhile anyway) anybody who was critical of President Obama “must be a racist.” NEWSFLASH: this is the same tactic that the vilified Senator McCarthy often used by calling somebody a “pinko commie” whenever HE disagreed with them! Now I realize that we could have a separate debate about the perceived good and the perceived bad about Senator McCarthy, but I often roll my eyes whenever so many leftists bitch about how awful he was, especially when said leftists immediately use the same tactics to vilify the other side that McCarthy used to vilify his enemies. Thanks for the honest and thoughtful response to my post; I appreciate it. ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-de-friend-wingnuts-fb-etiquette-question/644563/55 "2013-01-02T15:00:50Z")
I typically don’t care what people post. Sometimes I comment, sometimes I don’t. I have FB friends of all stripes and I see all sorts of stuff on the political spectrum (some of it quite irritating). I will only block/hide people who post the same sort of stuff every day. It doesn’t matter if it’s political or not. Most recently I ‘hid’ someone (family member) who, seemingly, posted ‘funny pictures’ every day at 6ish. It was like he’d get off work and get busy uploading between 5-15 pictures. Everyday. I don’t care how funny those pictures are, if you drown out what’s viewable on my wall every day, I’m going to hide you. ---
**Author:** ![Hottius\_Maximus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Hottius\_Maximus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hottius_Maximus)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-de-friend-wingnuts-fb-etiquette-question/644563/56 "2013-01-02T15:46:38Z")
> [@olivesmarch4th](#): > > My tolerance level is higher, obviously, because what they’re saying doesn’t piss me off. I only get pissed off when I disagree with someone.\* That makes sense. > > That said, I did defriend one guy because he was too left-radical even for me. It wasn’t the radical-ness so much as the anger and cynicism. Every step of progress toward his cause was never good enough. He was a very angry young man. A lot of my lefty friends are posting pro gun-control shit constantly and it’s getting on my nerves. What bothers me the most about it, really, is that people make these pictures/statements like they’re saying something profound or like it’s somehow the final statement on the matter. These are very complex issues and it irks me that people think they can be boiled down into a single sentence or a single solution. A single statistic, assuming it’s even true, is not a coherent argument. > > \*I’m not saying i get pissed off every time I disagree with someone. I’m saying given two equally inflammatory statements, one being from my POV and the other from a differing POV, the one with the differing POV is going to piss me off, whereas the one from my POV will usually only make me roll my eyes. I think what you just stated is pretty human, actually. I can get angry when I see what I believe is biased, one-sided commentary that may be factual but ignores other facts as well. You mention that although you tend to lean left that you get aggravated with the many non-thinking left wing comments promoting gun control. I must admit that those things annoy me as well. However, as a right winger I also get annoyed when I see very one-sided arguments about homosexuality, immigration, or the abortion issue. Again, these are complex issues and I can easily see how either side could provide valid arguments to support their positions. Sadly I don’t often see that from my right wing compatriots just like you don’t see that from your left wing compatriots regarding gun control. If only everybody else were as open minded as we are, eh? ---
**Author:** ![Saraya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Saraya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saraya)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-de-friend-wingnuts-fb-etiquette-question/644563/57 "2013-01-02T16:07:26Z")
First, this is eerily familiar and I am having deja vu over this exact situation with these exact particulars. > [@Moonchild](#): > > I have really tried to just acknowledge these friends’ freedom to express and “get over it,” but I just find myself getting really irked. So instead of dealing with the issue on your own, or through some resolution achieved with said ‘friends’, you came on Dope to get opinions on something personal? Why could your post have not simply said … \*“How do you handle Facebook “friends” who post mostly political links or “statements” bashing anything that goes against their \*party line?” Or even a more condensed version with \*“How do you handle Facebook “friends” who post a lot of stuff I do not wish to read or see” \* Instead you ask a loaded question and then end up painting yourself as the intolerant one with the following : > [@Moonchild](#): > > - I lean to the left for the most part, so naturally I get irked by what I’ll call the Fox News crowd. (My lefty FB friends don’t much climb the soapbox and those that do I, well, mostly agree with them. But I never chime in.) > -Might be because I don’t engage in political posts and sorely want to..-- although I know it will only put me more in the red (pun intended). > - I come from a middle class white suburb in Southern California and there seem to be a fair share of my high school’s graduates on the Fox News/Tea Party/Dems-are-stoopid bandwagon. The school is also, for a lack of better wording, pretty dumb; had the lowest test scores in our area, which included quite a few schools with a much lower SES. (And yes, I think there’s a correlation to the political point of view being taken by many of these people.) > - There’s also an ex-coworker who posts about 10 rants a day. But he has close ties to someone who could help me in an employment scenario, so I’m certainlty going to put up with that. Darn it Yet somehow in person, you’re able to avoid constant political barrages and have a nice and normal get together and enjoyable conversations as per : _I generally enjoy Facebook for its light entertainment and the opportunity to keep in touch. And besides their political jabbing, I don’t really have a problem with these people. And when there is a reunion or gathering of some sort (and my 30th is next summer), it’s nice to mingle as political opinions generally get put aside._ > [@Moonchild](#): > > Does anyone else face this conundrum? No, only conundrum I have here is you thinking wrongly of them despite your admissions. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-de-friend-wingnuts-fb-etiquette-question/644563.md?page=2)