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The Facebook unfriend

I'm considering deactivating or really trimming down my Facebook account if I do go down to Texas. An old friend of mine is an administrator and idolized by certain individuals from our Alma mater. I suspect I may suddenly get friends requests and PMs asking me to get in touch with him.

This old friend couldn't care less about them (most of them hadn't seen him in 17 years) and would never want to organize a reunion, which I suspect they are trying to do with him. Not to mention the old buddy has far more important things to do at the school and with his family.
 
You can unfollow someone without unfriending them.

But what if I want to see all the cute pictures of their children, but I don't want to see the garbage their ultraconservative friends post?

Unfollow them, and then occasionally make a point of scrolling through their timelines quickly to look for cute pictures of the kids. You'll still have to wade through the nonsense posts, but at least they won't be cluttering up your feed. I've done that with several people.
 
Now all my liberal friends are arguing on the posts of racist assholes who are blaming all of Islam for the French attacks. So I'm seeing the posts of the racist assholes.

It's like the One Ring. They are trying to use Facebook to do good...but through them, it is doing great evil.

There should be a solution to this besides blocking people entirely. The whole point of Facebook is to keep in touch with people you don't see very often, at least the whole original point. Block people out entirely and you can't do that.
 
I have no family on facebook except the ones I like, ie no extended family lunatics. I don't use my real name and neither do my relatives I like. I have zero interest in being friends with people who will piss me off, relatives or no. I have flat out lied when asked by people who I know will post the sort of shit that I can't tolerate if I have facebook.

So my suggestion is to burn it all down NOW. If you want to go back to it wait a month or so, create a new name that isn't searchable and just pick your closest people. If it's not a fun thing to have there is no reason to have it.
 
The whole point of Facebook is to keep in touch with people you don't see very often, at least the whole original point.

Actually it appears to have been originally created as a "universal website that can contact people around [Harvard] university." 21 months later it was expanded to cover 21 universities. It was about social networking within fairly small connected communities. It grew past that, clearly, and they've been tweaking it ever since to find the most profitable and growth driving model, despite the fact that such models don't give most people the experience they'd prefer.

I just cut nearly 40 people from my friends list and have been aggressively applying "Hide all from ____" and blocking pages outright. I installed the Facebook Purity extension (you have to update it regularly) to smother all the noise on the site. It's made for a much more pleasant experience with a much higher ratio of signal to noise.

I also recommend stopping using the "Like" function entirely, because Facebook uses those likes to target ads/suggested posts at you and your friends. Instead, just write a comment on anything you like, even if you write "Me like!" It's more personal and meaningful than an effortless and impersonal thumbs-up. Sure, it doesn't boost anyone's posts, but but does Aunt Harriet really need her posts boosted to wider audiences?
 
There should be a solution to this besides blocking people entirely. The whole point of Facebook is to keep in touch with people you don't see very often, at least the whole original point. Block people out entirely and you can't do that.
There is a solution. Hide the posts by people you are not interested in. I'm trying to explain with pictures this time.

Click the arrow in the upper right corner whenever someone shares a video, or likes a post, or replies to a post on someone's page you don't want to see.



In the opening window, click on "hide all entries from this page / person"



You have to do that again and again for as long as you keep seeing these things. But one day all will be hidden.
 
There should be a solution to this besides blocking people entirely. The whole point of Facebook is to keep in touch with people you don't see very often, at least the whole original point. Block people out entirely and you can't do that.

Blocking is not your only option. A couple of us have suggested others for you to try.
 
I'm a fairly right-of-center person, though IMHO not unreasonably so. I don't think I've ever said anything that would make people drop me on Twitter (I'm not on Facebook). And I follow people whose politics are way different from me. So I don't let it get me down.

Oh, and The Facebook Unfriend sounds like some kind of spy movie. :lol:
 
The whole point of Facebook is to keep in touch with people you don't see very often, at least the whole original point.

Actually it appears to have been originally created as a "universal website that can contact people around [Harvard] university."

Indeed. And mostly it was created to see who was dating who. It was basically just supposed to be a glorified online yearbook.

I happened to be going to college at just the right time, and my school was one of the original schools to be accepted by Facebook. That's right: your college had to apply to join the Facebook network, and you could only get a personal account if you had a valid college email address.

I kind of miss those days. Facebook was a lot more fun before everybody and their mother could join.
 
The whole point of Facebook is to keep in touch with people you don't see very often, at least the whole original point.

Actually it appears to have been originally created as a "universal website that can contact people around [Harvard] university."

Indeed. And mostly it was created to see who was dating who. It was basically just supposed to be a glorified online yearbook.

I happened to be going to college at just the right time, and my school was one of the original schools to be accepted by Facebook. That's right: your college had to apply to join the Facebook network, and you could only get a personal account if you had a valid college email address.

I kind of miss those days. Facebook was a lot more fun before everybody and their mother could join.

That was 2006-2007 right? I remember that, fondly, too. It sure has changed a lot in the last 8 years.
 
Earlier than that. I've been on Facebook since 2004. I believe it was created during the 2003-2004 school year.
 
Just unfriended someone because I was sick of her anti-Muslim/"isn't Xianity wonderful?" fundie schtick. Used to love that girl.
 
I just unfriended and blocked a person due to their political posts. I just get sick and tired of bashing our leaders. I don't care which party our leaders happen to be, we the people voted them in and should respect them.
 
I happened to be going to college at just the right time, and my school was one of the original schools to be accepted by Facebook. That's right: your college had to apply to join the Facebook network, and you could only get a personal account if you had a valid college email address.
Yeah, you had to have a .edu extension in order to register. And even after it went more public, you still had to be registered on Facebook to see other profiles.
 
One thing I don't get is how people notice when I untag myself. There were times when I had to untag myself from certain pictures when they may make me appear unprofessional, or don't want to be closely associated with someone (like someone I barely know me keeping tagging me).
 
Just unfriended someone because I was sick of her anti-Muslim/"isn't Xianity wonderful?" fundie schtick. Used to love that girl.

Truly one of my favorite things about Facebook.

"I wonder how my best friend from high school is doing. *looks him up on Facebook* Oh... oh my. Seems to be into Nazi memorabilia? And posts racist memes? ...And has 6 kids? Well, OK then. *closes page*"

On the other hand, I'd rather know someone is a total scumbag than have no idea and it just come up out of nowhere one day. "Hey, we've been friends for a long time. Have you ever read Mein Kampf?"
 
One thing I don't get is how people notice when I untag myself. There were times when I had to untag myself from certain pictures when they may make me appear unprofessional, or don't want to be closely associated with someone (like someone I barely know me keeping tagging me).

I have my settings so I can never be tagged. Just do that and they can't tag you so it links to your FB.
 
How do you guys deal with if you have a relative who has a lot of really conservative Facebook friends? Like, I don't want to unfriend my Aunt or my brother's fiance but I also don't want to be shared every single fucking hateful transphobic meme about Caitlin Jenner. Does Facebook have some kind of topic filter I'm not aware of?

You can choose not to share with them in the 'custom' settings. for that particular post.
 
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