Facebook

[AppleTree]

Tomorrow is national Facebook "unfriending" day...or so I read somewhere.

For the first time since opening my facebook account I actually did unfriend someone last week. It felt weird. It wasn't someone I know well, we went to the same high school, and met actually at a class reunion some years ago. I hadn't seen her in person for about five years. She only "friended" me about a month ago, and I was bombarded with such negative politically skewed, hateful postings, I felt I couldn't take it anymore. I won't even say which side she was on, it doesn't matter. I know my friends all have different points of view, and I respect that, as I hope they respect my point of view.

These postings went beyond just point of view, it was racial, hateful and insulting to say the least. Who needs that??

But I was wondering how you know if someone unfriends you? Do they get a notification or what? Are there other reasons you have unfriended someone in the past?

To me it all seems so... superficial. And yet, sometimes the best way to keep in touch with far flung friends and relatives you don't see often.

[Irulan]

You don't know if someone unfriends you. The only way to know is if you check your friend list regularly and don't see that person on your list. No notifications are sent out. I unfriend people regularly; it's mistake to take it personally. Everyone has their own criteria for friends - whether it's a certain level of personal connection, some number that they have that they want to keep a list under, etc.

During election season, there are a few folks I hid temporarily just so I wouldn't see their stuff. I otherwise appreciate the connection even if we have varying politics.

There are a lot of different ways to manage people if for whatever reason you don't want to completely unfriend them. One tool is to "restrict" someone - they stay a friend but they won't see any of your posts and you don't see theirs. You can use lists to sort people out into people you want to see all the time, or people related to a certain activity or group; you can do settings on if you want to see a particular persons photos, comments, likes or other stuff, or not. There's great links out there on how to do all this stuff.

{insert obligatory comment into thread from someone about how they don't need to use Facebook and they don't see the point, etc }

[shootingstar]

Wow, Apple just reading that personal incident on Facebook, makes me still unmotivated to subscribe to Facebook.

I'm just grateful to get email from family and friends. And I tend to send longer email messages than they. They just find it faster, easier to phone me for the complicated stuff.

[emily_in_nc]

I unfriended a few folks during the election season for the same reason -- hateful posts. A couple I just hid or unsubscribed from their feed for the time being. I have also been unfriended by a few folks, and it does kind of sting when you realize they've done it. There are probably a few I don't even realize have unfriended me.

One way to find out someone unfriended you is if you go their Timeline, and instead of saying "Friends" it says "Add Friend". Or if they show up in the right-hand column as "People you may know". But you can't please everyone, and some people friend others for the wrong reasons. I have accepted friend requests from people I don't even remember just b/c they went to the same high school or we used to work together years ago, and if they bug me or post ugly stuff, I don't have problems unfriending them as we were not really connected in the first place. I have also friended or accepted friend requests from people I've never even met in person but we share an interest and have interacted in a FB group, and they seemed like nice people. I've "virtually met" some really great folks that way, actually, who share a lot of the same interests.

[Crankin]

My BIL unfriended me, my DH, and his 2 other sisters after our argument about his "immoral" use of charity fundraising tools for his ill daughter, when he is building a house bigger than mine and driving a 75K car. I noticed I was not getting his posts linking to obnoxious blog after a week or two. Then, a couple of days ago, my DH was digging around the net and found that his fundraising site had been taken down, and redone with no names, just initials.
Maybe our advice about privacy and protected medical information got through. You would not believe the stuff he was publishing out there.
I have hidden a couple of people or restricted their posts to "just see a few."

[AppleTree]

I unfriended a few folks during the election season for the same reason -- hateful posts. A couple I just hid or unsubscribed from their feed for the time being. I have also been unfriended by a few folks, and it does kind of sting when you realize they've done it. There are probably a few I don't even realize have unfriended me.

One way to find out someone unfriended you is if you go their Timeline, and instead of saying "Friends" it says "Add Friend". Or if they show up in the right-hand column as "People you may know". But you can't please everyone, and some people friend others for the wrong reasons. I have accepted friend requests from people I don't even remember just b/c they went to the same high school or we used to work together years ago, and if they bug me or post ugly stuff, I don't have problems unfriending them as we were not really connected in the first place. I have also friended or accepted friend requests from people I've never even met in person but we share an interest and have interacted in a FB group, and they seemed like nice people. I've "virtually met" some really great folks that way, actually, who share a lot of the same interests.

It gets pretty complicated doesn't it? Yes, this was a person I wasn't close with to begin with, and really didn't know all that well. Still, it felt strange. I know I could have blocked her posts, but really, I thought "do I WANT to be associated with someone who posts that kind of stuff?"...and the answer was no.

Thanks for the info and advice Emily.

[OakLeaf]

I know I could have blocked her posts, but really, I thought "do I WANT to be associated with someone who posts that kind of stuff?"...and the answer was no.

Heh. I blocked someone for the same reasons recently - someone who'd blocked me some time ago with a florid statement about how he "never" posted anything about politics. Now, I do link to a lot of news, which I suppose might offend some people, but very little opinion ... while he mostly posts about his personal life, with occasional forays into truly hateful racist political opinion.

I thought about unfriending him. But being he's part of my riding group I'll still see him around if I recover enough to ride with the group at all. Just didn't see the point of unfriending.

[zoom-zoom]

{insert obligatory comment into thread from someone about how they don't need to use Facebook and they don't see the point, etc }

It's like you have ESP, or something.

[shootingstar]

If I subscribed to Facebook, I still won't get my own family motivated enough to post photos and more chatter. Same for my closest friends. They simply have preferred styles of e-communication.

I don't see it useful at this time for work-related purposes...my career has taken a different direction where still I can go to the Internet to get fuller information on latest developments. Some of the professional associations do use Facebook but not every member is subscribing. So email still guarantees widest coverage.

[WindingRoad]

Unfortunately I had to block some people during the election too
for similar reasons. Even more unfortunate is one was my aunt and cousin :-(

[Veronica]

Y

{insert obligatory comment into thread from someone about how they don't need to use Facebook and they don't see the point, etc }

Funny


Veronica

[Irulan]

[that should have said commentS]

I've spent some time studying the controls and one thing that worked this political season is to remove someone from the newsfeed but not restrict them or unfriend them. I'm interested in the controls because although I love FB, there is so much crap and clutter with ads, tickers, game posts and so on that I think the straight up version is hideous.

Here are some nifty links:http://www.fbpurity.com/ Facebok Purity is a browser add-on that gives you lots of options for visual configuration. You can turn off the ticker, or suggestions, change the timeline layout,use filters or blak/white lists, hide applications and games, etc. This combined with
http://adblockplus.org/en/ Ad Block Plus browser ad-on. No more ads. 'Nuff said. Combine these two for a super clean crisp uncluttered interface. I wish it worked on my tablet. :-(

http://facecrooks.com/ Facecrooks is a watchdog site that stays on top of hoaxes, privacy issues and related topics. They are the place to go if you are wondering about the latest free Costco gift card offer, virus warnings, or the "click here to raise money for a crippled child" kind of stuff. In addition, they monitor closely privacy issues and settings. They have an excellent article on how to maximize privacy settings that they update regularly as FB changes the defaults behind the scenes. They also have a new article on using lists to organize people. As the metrics for who and what gets displayed in the newsfeed get changed (I.E. FB thinking they know what you want to see vs. what you actually want to see) lists are a good way to get around that.

[Crankin]

Ha, Winding Road I stopped talking to/seeing my aunt and cousins because of their political views. Just imagine family holidays full of the types of comments you were seeing on FB.

[emily_in_nc]

Thanks for the links, Irulan -- these look very useful! I have already subscribed to Facecrooks and will also look at FB Purity. I figured out how to turn off the FB ticker without it, though. I think there was an option somewhere, but I can't remember where I did it.

[AppleTree]

Ha, Winding Road I stopped talking to/seeing my aunt and cousins because of their political views. Just imagine family holidays full of the types of comments you were seeing on FB.

Yikes. Now, that would be bad.

I am all for differing opinions, it makes life much more interesting. It's when it spills over into the hateful/insulting that I have an issue.

Irulan, thanks for the detailed info and links. There is so much I don't know about facebook settings...and they don't exactly make it easy to figure out do they??