I tried. I had an acquaintance from high school who became a facebook friend when I joined up a few years ago. Over time it became clear we had very different opinions about politics. I’m a Liberal who grew up in the American south, and now lives in a Soviet Canuckistan. She lives where we grew up still, deep in the heart of Dixie.
Over the last few years we’ve fought hard on the FB platform. She reposts right wing talking points and memes, I post articles and make my own, often sarcastic points. Most recently, however, she made a comment regarding Ilhan Omar that, essentially, said that she hoped some crazy put Omar in a body bag.
Aaaaaaand I’m done. I tried for a long time to look outside my bubble, I really did. But I just don’t see the merit in engaging anymore. Fuck that. I’m out.
I have friends (just a couple) and even relatives (one in particular) who, if I knew them only through their Facebook pages, I would believe to be insane, possibly violent, right-wing nutcases.
And yet in real life they’re not at all like that (although they are certainly conservative).
For that reason (among others), I gave up Facebook a while back.
You did the right thing, I hope you enjoy the relief.
This is always an option, too. This is the option I chose, and I didn’t miss it for a second. I understand some people derive enough benefit from facebook that killing it is not preferable.
That’s why I try and avoid political stuff there. Facebook is for kitteh memes, sharing musical discoveries, and funny photoshops (like the snalien).
Unfriending politically different people, even when they’re clearly nutters, is useless because it doesn’t make them go away, it just makes you think people like them aren’t out there.
My conservative friends and family usually simply ignore the political stuff or post their own, although a few Trumpist friends-of-friends have stormed off in a huff over the years. IME the ones in my sphere who throw the biggest tantrums aren’t the right-wingers but the dogmatic left-wingers who think they’re all tolerant and open-minded until their preferred narrative is challenged, and then the kneejerking begins.
Most recently an Assange acolyte went into hysterics over my suggestion that Assange wasn’t in fact a latter-day Diogenes seeking truth in benighted territory but rather was a self-aggrandizing asshole and potential rapist, and that while it may also be true that the US is engaging in dirty tricks and is unlikely to give Assange a fair trial it is also true that sometimes there are bad people on both sides (or on multiple sides) of a conflict or issue. Suddenly I was being told that I was a brainwashed drone of the totalitarian state and that it was “Assange’s way or Orwell’s way”. I have opted not to respond as I fear the individual involved may suffer some sort of aneurysm if I point out the myriad issues and ironies in his arguments.
That said, most of my friends actually *are *tolerant and open-minded liberals who will consider reasonable alternative arguments. But boy howdy, it’s the True Believers that will go off like a bomb when you press the right button.
I’ve never had a problem blocking friends on Facebook that I vehemently disagree with. Or not friending them in the first place.
I agree that trying to get out of your bubble is a good thing but you can also just take a gander at researched and nuanced articles on conservative blogs and sites, instead. There’s no need to consume “the right” in the form of screeching ridiculous memes, with your buddy as the representative of the right, any more than you need to represent the left in the same way.
I definitely don’t let screechy fuckers push me out of Facebook. I rule the roost there. I enjoy it. People who ruin my enjoyment can be fucked off with one click of a button.
Your life will be better without Facebook. Facebook “friends” are not really. Social media is perhaps the worst platform for discussion and dialogue.
I am on Facebook but rarely visit (I use it just to keep in touch with relatives), and never engage in political talk there. I save that for my friends IRL, who I see regularly. We certainly engage in political banter, make points, aim barbs, etc, all in good fun, and then at the end of the day remain real friends. I like having friends with a variety of political POV, as long as they are smart, and can back up their assertions (just like here on the Dope).
I wish it were like a social event where you would just nod politely and walk away when someone says something you consider stupid. I ignore pro-Trump BS posted by high school friends who found me and who I friended. And when I post Fuck Trump, I wish they would extend me that courtesy and just scroll on. The only people I have unfriended are thos who argue or rebut my opinion.
Contrarian here, but I think you’re enabling the echo chamber that allows people to believe it’s okay to support {{ hideous groupthink }} because “everyone else thinks the same as me!!” I believe it’s sort of my duty to speak for the silent masses.
Full disclosure: I don’t use FB like most folks, since I am all about the groups. (I have a few highly specialized hobbies, and we underwater-basket-weavers have a hard time finding our people otherwise.)
That said, I have never unfriended anyone. I just post the pinko commie libtardo stuff that appeals to me, such as mercilessly roasting anti-vaxxers or Trump supporters, and eventually I notice that some folks have unfriended me. Off they go, to the cornfield or whatevs. But they have to do the work, and they have to consciously decide against my stuff.
So I’m proud to say that my timeline, on the rare occasions I actually see it, doesn’t always echo me. A couple folks, who either can’t be bothered to unfriend me or who sincerely believe I may come around, still pop up. I enjoy seeing their posts, because it reminds me of the world in which I actually live and not the one where I’d be happiest.
Okay, the one guy who longs for Reagan irritates me. I let it go because he’s older than god’s grandfather by now, and I have fond childhood memories of swimming in his pool with his dogs.* I think we’re still FB friends due to his lack of technical ability, so hopefully, I pop up with an occasional “trans folks can’t be legislated away!” meme on his feed.
including the fattest doberman you’ve ever seen. Did you know dobies can get fat? Oddly, that doesn’t make them look like Rottweilers. But you’d think so.
I have a relative who can’t go a day without posting crazy-ass stuff on Facebook, and I treat it like a flare-up of a chronic skin condition: I put her on snooze for 30 days an go about my life until another eruption. I’ve gone as long as a week in the past just surfing along with her crazy before I had to snooze her again.
I am Facebook friends with a lot of extremely left wing people even though I am much more conservative than they are. I don’t UNFRIEND them, but I did UNFOLLOW the posts of the ones whose brains went haywire after Trump won the election and who then began obsessively posting about Trump 10+ times a day. It’s bizarre to me that anyone would want to obsess over someone they hate so much. I didn’t like Obama, and so I just focused on other things during his presidency rather than sharing multiple articles every day about him.
I would wager that most of the people who post political crap on Facebook vastly overestimate how many of their FB friends even read those posts. I think in many cases the only people who read them are the ones who already agree with you or the ones who just like arguing with you, so it is really not worth bothering IMO. I very rarely comment on politics at all on FB.
I don’t unfriend people over politics. My thought is that if I like someone as a person and/or find value in having a relationship with them, then I won’t unfriend them just because they believe in crazy shit like the Russia collusion conspiracy theory or went into hysterics over the sexual assault accusations against Brett Kavanaugh while completely ignoring the sexual assault allegations against the Democrat Lt Gov of Virginia. The reality is that even someone who has some dumb or crazy beliefs can still be a nice person or have something to offer. In OP’s case, it doesn’t sound like they were really all that close to begin with, so probably didn’t even need to be FB friends anyway regardless of the political disagreement. Why do we feel a need to friend people on Facebook that we don’t care enough about to actually have a relationship with in real life? I barely remember many of my high school classmates. I don’t care enough about them to go to my upcoming high school reunion, quite frankly, so we probably don’t need to be FB friends.
However, even if I do think someone is worth being Facebook friends with, I have no interest in fighting with them online. Every time I am tempted to say something to a political post on there that I think is dumb, I remind myself that arguing with them almost certainly won’t change their mind, will just waste my time, and cause aggravation. So, if their posts annoy me, I just hide their posts. Facebook is much more fun when you focus on the things you like and find interesting rather than engaging in futile fights with people you disagree with.
I stopped talking to a IRL friend after, as I was approaching him and another woman standing in line for the bus, with about 40 other people in line too; VERY LOUDLY declared that he wished someone would assassinate President Obama.
That was it. Done. I don’t wish to publicly associate with anyone who makes public statements about assassinating politicians. I would do the same to anyone who made a similar statement about Donald Trump, as much as I despise the man.
That’s the line I’ve drawn.
On FB, my line is knowingly posting false and trollish statements and refusing to back down when called out on it.
The wife of a former foster brother posted a thing about illegal aliens collecting $1 trillion a year in welfare benefits. I responded with the actual welfare budget figures (well below $1 trillion a year in total) and the fact that illegal aliens cannot collect welfare. I reminded her of the Bereans (New Testament Bible), who didn’t just believe what they were taught, but went home and read their scriptures to see if those things were true (since she’s always on about what a strong CHRISTIAN she is). Her response was to tell me that if I didn’t like her posts, don’t read them. So I unfriended her.
Recently, another Conservative friend posted that he was a member of the 3%. I pointed out that they’re a racist organization whose members were involved in the bombing of the mosque in Minnesota (where we both live) and who actively advocate violence against “government overreach”. He deleted the post and remains on my friends list. (His own family called him out on it too. He’s like the only Conservative in his extended family. Their “Wait, you say you’re a member of the group that bombed the local mosque???” response is probably what got him.)
I find it incredibly easy to just scroll on past everyone’s political posts. I don’t even slow down. The people who can ONLY make political chat or just post memes get put on ignore. I find this especially helpful regarding relatives. I can check in and see that they’re still doing ok in their little bubble world without having to engage in actual conversation.
Okay, let me expand a bit. I’ve not unfriended her, though I have unfollowed her, which I did when other friends essentially said “we’re tired of your horrible political arguments, with this horrible person, we don’t want to see them on our feeds”. Since then, I’ve gone to her page, and either read and replied to her horrible posts (Irish servants had it worse than slaves / Trump is god / children in cages is fine / Seth Rich / 9-11 conspiracy and more recently Q-anon and the above mentioned comments about Omar. There are many many more variants for the connoisseur ) . I can, should I choose, continue to go fight the good fight on her page, or she can summon me there, which she has done, or she can visit my page, although that may be technically beyond her.
The only thing I’ve done is stop engaging. There are a variety of reasons for that:
As they say in my homeland, “If you wrestle with a pig, you both get muddy, and only the pig enjoys it”.
I used to think I was perhaps putting forward a more liberal world view and non-Fox news to her less conservative other friends who might be watching. ( FWIW, our discussions were largely her right wing memes and Fox articles versus my extensive fucking research to rebut them, often with footnotes. ) Now I honestly think they’ve abandoned her, and it’s just knee-jerk dead-enders on her side.
The Batman theory. There is the idea that Batman’s deranged crime-fighting actually does more harm than good, by precipitating kooky thematic bad guys in Gotham, who might otherwise just be normal crooks, cranks and crazies, but who decide to dress up as clowns and commit mass murder because Batman gives them a higher purpose. I wonder if me constantly fighting with her is causing her to double down on the Right Wing BS. I am assuming I’m Batman, but maybe she is.
I was honestly sickened by the Omar comment. Talking civilly and fighting with her have not changed her mind. I’m thinking if I just stop interacting, without a big blowup and FU, if she’ll maybe de-escalate and start posting puppies and rainbows.
God. This is so much what I’ve been doing. Bible verses about immigrants, Congressional budgets, quotes from testimony, actual historical references, yadah yadah. I mean, it’s been great for me, I’ve learned a lot, but logic and facts don’t seem to change minds.
Well, to each his own, and we all have to decide where the line is, but I won’t remain friends with people who spread hateful lies, refuse to listen to any facts and double down on it. On any subject. Because if I can’t trust anything you say and you keep spouting hate, then I can’t trust you as a person or as a friend.