This is also true of the people I have unfriended for hateful political stuff.
I also note that I once deleted my Facebook page and created a new one. I told people who cared to friend my new account, and left it up for a while. Then I deliberately randomized the password and requested full deletion.
I do kinda regret that I didn’t keep it, but just not use it. (My wall was useless for being in contact with actual friends.) It was fun sometimes just to see the diversity of people. At that time, people just friended everyone, it seemed. I even remember a couple videos that were funny that it would be nice to still have. Oh, well.
Back in the days of the last president, I blocked a few friends-of-friends because I was seeing, oh, 20 or 30 anti-Obama posts from those people daily. Didn’t they, like, have a JOB or anything?
I have found a few people on Facebook that I thought I wanted to friend, until I saw evidence of admiration for Sarah Palin. Nope, not sending it, although in a few cases I did accept a request when they sent one to me.
Facebook isn’t real life. I visit it maybe 6 times a year. So unfriending and unfollowing means little.
If my page is cluttered with what your dog did, or reposting what was on someone else’s site, you are probably getting booted. I got on Facebook to find old friends and to see what you are up to, not what you think is interesting or what people you know are doing.
I think FB is nothing more than an opportunity for people to engage in cheap virtue signaling and/or as a substitute for professional psychiatric therapy. I’m sorry I ever joined. What was I thinking?
I have a wide variety of friends, family, and acquaintances. They range the gamut from fairly left to fairly right. Most, however, are reasonable people in real life. Sometimes I cringe in embarrassment on their behalf for some of the left or right memes they post, as if they are revealing some great truth.
What they are really revealing is how parochial they are, but people have their opinions and that’s hardly a reason to unfriend them. I’ve never unfriended anyone. On the other hand, I’m not easily offended by people who don’t agree with my pet theories.
Although Ford is sincere, the Democrats have certainly used her story for political means in a way that Ford did not originally intend. So though I do not support his confirmation, I can see how a reasonable person might take the position of your ex-friends.
I have only unfriended one person. He posted hateful, vitriolic, distorted, fact-free material related to politics. However, I will not unfriend or even unfollow someone just because they post ideas I don’t agree with. I think it’s important to understand the viewpoint of people who don’t agree with me, even if it doesn’t change my mind.
You mean *they *posted the meme? Why would you tell someone that? Unsolicited advice is nearly always unwelcome.
My line is never. I have never unfriended someone on Facebook. I have hidden one person from my feed, but that was for posting too much glurge, I’ve never done it over their political opinions. I actually like hearing what’s going on in their world and what they are saying. It makes it more likely that I can change their minds. If all I’m doing is digging in on my points and they are digging in on theirs, then I’ll never convince them of anything. It’s better to know where they are starting and guide it in my direction.
In the Kavanaugh mess, I would never start with Kavanaugh is an abuser, because they simply don’t believe that and digging in my heels on that point is unlikely to convince them. I am more likely to say that we should probably take more time with the investigation so that Kavanaugh can clear his name. I say that maybe a better pick would be another conservative without this baggage since it will make his decisions suspect and we want them to be unable to be attacked. I especially make sure to say things like ‘We can trust the FBI to clear his name if given the time.’ so that down the road I’ve planted that seed of the FBI being a neutral arbiter. If you don’t understand who you’re talking to, then you might as well be screaming at a rock. Debate and facts almost never change minds. Minds change gradually over a long period from lots and lots of inputs and rarely all at once.
I unfollowed a former boss who was known to sexually harass employees (self included) and also a friend who was cheating on her husband and thought it was hilarious that she’d bring random guys home and fuck them in the basement while her kids and husband slept upstairs.
So pretty much those people I find morally repellant I’ll unfriend.
If I simply find their views or posts obnoxious, I’ll just unfollow them.
I don’t have a ton of facebook friends - maybe just over 150 - and they fall into 3 categories: those I’m close to and interact with on a frequent basis; family members I want to keep in contact with but don’t see as often as I’d like; and friends from high school or college I’m not super close with anymore but still want to keep up with. Edited to add secret bucket #4, those groups like scouts or baseball/softball moms where my kids interact with their kids frequently enough I either know and like their parents or can get some good info (upcoming events, tips, updated game times, canceled games, new activities) I might not get through other channels.
Most people haven’t changed all that much at the core from when I first met them, so unless they do something truly horrible I don’t bother to unfriend.
I have unfriended a few people I grew up with who now pass the time by posting obvious hateful fake news. I also friended, then unfriended, 3 people I should have checked out more thoroughly. They were pictured as friendly, pretty women from nations I found to be rife with scammers. Now, I’m more careful about friend requests. By the way, a friend “suggestion” is not the same as a request. Facebook will send you dozens of “suggestions” that some logarithm chose for you. A “request” actually comes from the requester.
I’ve only unfriended a couple of people. One was somebody I knew in grade school who turned into this skeevy, creeper kind of guy (not against me–I just got disgusted by enough of his posts that I cut him loose). The others were people I didn’t really know and who posted offensive political, racist, or misogynist stuff.
I’ve blocked a few more, usually for political stuff, posting too much crap (FB game stuff, ‘content free’ stuff, or similar), or, in one case, being a nice person but an animal-rights loony who insisted on posting graphic images of injured animals. That’s one thing I definitely don’t want to see in my feed.
I have unfriended exactly one person and it was in this category. He posted a meme about gun control and when I pointed out that all the “facts” in the meme were false, he replied with “It still proves my point”. I can put up with opinions that differ from mine, but not outright stupidity.
I’ve never unfriended anyone for political reasons or any other reason. I have un-followed two that posted liberal memes and political messages up to several times a day.
Well, if you want to ditch someone and be a gutless punk about it, you can simply “mute” them. This has the same effect as “unfriending”, but they cannot detect the fact that you have basically turned them off.
If you want to make a statement, the “unfriending” is something they will detect.
The only people I’ve “unfriended” are three Trump supporters, and I only did that after the first year because I felt they had ample time to see and hear what this man really is. At that point, I felt that I no longer wanted to be associated with them in any way.