The Block Button (Case Study #1)
BLOCKING PEOPLE ON FACEBOOK: CASE STUDY #1
Like many of you here, I struggle making decisions about who, where, and when to use Facebook’s BLOCK button.
Ah yes, the dreaded “BLOCK” button, social media’s death row.
I don’t take BLOCKING lightly nor freely. Once someone gets BLOCKED, they’re pretty much erased from my consciousness. That’s just me. While there have been a few rare exceptions and some persons were “reinstated,” usually once someone gets tossed into my kill file, I forget them. This isn’t borne from anger or revenge. It’s just that I’m lucky to have plenty of people to engage with who are positive, entertaining, enjoyable, and mostly post accurate information (even when I may strongly disagree with their opinions and/or conclusions). I don’t need “weeds” in my garden.
One person I blocked recently will remain nameless. Don’t bother trying to guess who it is. The identity isn’t important. Most of you don’t know the person, anyway.
Background: I’ve known this person for 10-15 years. I wouldn’t call the person a close friend so much as an associate. It’s someone I’ve associated with, and run into from time to time. In the past, I can’t remember many specific posts from this person, but what I do recall was generally positive and worth reading for the content.
Then, this person posted a meme. The meme included a photo of a famous person, with a quote. These kinds of memes litter our Facebook feeds. I don’t like them. I think they’re crutches for weak minds and people who lack the ability to express their own opinions. Using celebrities allegedly making some profound quote is intellectually lazy in my view. Sure, an occasional post like this is fine. But lots of people are enablers of meme factory fast food; they are polluters which just adds to the stink of the forum. That said, memes are here to stay and won’t go away. So. I’ll tolerate them when I have to.
However, what I will NOT tolerate is the willful spread of disinformation. Giving a platform to lies. That’s grounds for termination. It’s tough enough navigating social media and finding truth as it is. We sure as hell don’t need outright fabrications cluttering up the process and making things more difficult.
In the thread, several other readers posted links to reliable sources proving that the quote was false. It was fake. Totally made up. Bullshit. The celebrity NEVER said it, nor wrote it. We’ve all seen these memes with words of wisdom, allegedly spoken by someone famous. Why anyone shares this rubbish is a mystery to me, but I digress. So, I added my post to the comments and followed up by asking if the person would remove the meme and/or issue a “correction.”
The response shocked me. Actually, it made me angry. The person said the quote was something he liked, so it “doesn’t matter” if the (celebrity) really said it or not. Then, the person added that the independent sources which referred to the quote were just as “questionable.” It was a poor attempt at false equivalency.
Fine. Thank you very much for saving me lots of future wasted time. I issued no threats, but this was a line in the sand, so to speak. Unless the person made some attempt to CORRECT the disinformation and misinformation that was spread, I was going to terminate our engagement. The person refused and stood by the decision to let the garbage remain, presumably for more readers to be fooled and misled (then, presumably went on to something else). By the way this isn’t just a minor problem of social media; it’s a SCOURGE that has enormous ramifications politically, socially, and culturally. There’s a lot of gullible minds out there who won’t fact check anything and unfortunately they determine our fates by voting in elections. But again, I digress.
Boom. Instant BLOCK. No announcement. No personal message. BLOCK. Done.
I made a decision that time is precious. Even though I admittedly waste much of my own time on wasteful deeds, I still want to avoid unnecessary interactions. There’s way too much to learn, to enjoy, to think about, and yes — debate constructively — without the added burden of dealing with someone who posts FALSE INFORMATION.
Since my decision, I have’t missed the person, nor even thought about the person, until now. Fait accompli.
Going forward, I’ll use this as a template. Anyone willfully posting FALSE information gets a BLOCK. No, not an unfollow. Not an unfriend. If I can’t trust them, I don’t care to know who they are or what they think. Life is too short to weed through lies.
I’ll write about CASE STUDY #2 next.
