Why you should Block people and your Community responsibility
Blocking People on Facebook: It’s not censorship -they are free to continue talking bollocks – I am exercising my freewill to say enough is enough. I belong to some pretty atrocious Facebook groups. Anti Muslim, anti gay, anti-anything not white, male and with a gun. Why? Cos I’m nosey. About humanity. Plus it meant I…
Blocking People on Facebook: It’s not censorship -they are free to continue talking bollocks – I am exercising my freewill to say enough is enough. I belong to some pretty atrocious Facebook groups. Anti Muslim, anti gay, anti-anything not white, male and with a gun. Why? Cos I’m nosey. About humanity. Plus it meant I knew Trump would be voted in LOL. I also keep some absolute shockers around (individual connections), the type of people that will argue that the sky is falling and that everything everybody else says is wrong. If they are entertaining, intelligent and can argue and debate and make me sharper and more incisive with each battle, it’s all good.
Why are you friends with them?
Then there’s the others. The persistent, nonthinking, unthoughtful, casually racist, casually cruel, dickheads that I knew I shouldn’t have connected with and I know I should ditch but I haven’t. And then I do. And I don’t do it with that fanfare of “I’m going to remove friends today, comment on why you should stay”. Cos frankly that’s just vomitous.
I remove them as friends, I block them and I forget about them. Move on. Nothing to see here.
It’s not censorship, it’s discretion
When I’m watching TV, say Q&A (chat show with different political views) and they are talking bollocks (regularly) I either throw something at the TV screen ie. the remote control or I use the remote control to change the channel. I’m not censoring them, the panellists on the show, I’m simply choosing to stick my fingers in my ears and go la la laaa until I find The Bachelor (or equivalent rubbish) on another channel. How am I censoring Q&A by changing the channel, by not listening? It’s not like there is a new argument in town that I should consider, it’s SSDD (same sh!t different day) . Why should you have to listen to the guy that takes the kids to soccer practice or some friend of an old school friend from 20 years ago to their crap? Will you learn anything new (besides remembering not to friend random dickheads) umm no. Will you change them or ‘learn ’em? nope. Block and move on.
If you wouldn’t take them home to mother
So your friend on Facebook is talking about how all women need to be knocked around, how gays taking it up the butt deserve AIDS and how owning a gun is the only choice for real men? Thanks for providing them an audience and remember, every interaction, engagement, comment, or even pause to read is noted by Facebook and the post may be shown to your friends and friends’ friends. Great, you just introduced Billy Bob Jo to your sweet Grandma. If you wouldn’t bring them home for dinner with the family why would you inflict them on your Mum and Grandma on Facebook? Block and move on.
You are a community manager now. Every interaction, share, comment, like and click is noted and forwarded to your network. Consciously curate that network. It is YOUR responsibility to keep your community safe, not Facebook or AT&T or Fedex or any other communication delivery platform. What gets seen, what gets sent, what is read is your responsibility.
A Huuuge Bigly Caveat.
I stuck with some people that I initially wanted to reject and learned a shedload about why people voted for Trump – and they aren’t all dumb and uneducated. many of them are disenfranchised – and have a greater understanding now by listening to them of why they subscribe. I’m still not buying their story but I have some empathy now. I didn’t walk a mile in their shoes – more like a few inches – but I learned me something. Choose when you block. Learn first then block. Block when they stop making sense and it’s the same old argument, but not before.
Oh and for f*cks sake grow up and check the facts first. We aren’t in a post-Truth era we are in a pre-Accountability Age. Seriously.