Don’t quit Facebook. Do this instead …
By: Beau Dure
Tags: Social Media, Facebook

The election and its aftermath have yielded another Facebook exodus.

We all have those friends. They can’t take any more vitriol and fake news, so they make an announcement. “I’m leaving, but you all have my mobile number.”

Well, no, we don’t. And in any case, it would feel weird to text you specifically instead of sharing with hundreds of people at once.

The strangest cases are those who leave Facebook … and go to Twitter, the biggest portal to Hell the world has ever seen. I’ve had hundreds of people come after me on Twitter for such offenses as disagreeing with Q-Anon and doing the math on the U.S. women’s soccer team’s pay demands. The trending topics these days are mostly alerts that something that has gone viral is fake.

The only rationale I’ve seen for leaving Facebook friends for Twitter twits is that you can create your own lists on Twitter and therefore have more control over what you see.

That rationale is wrong.

Frankly, that rationale smacks of privilege. What I deal with on Twitter is nothing compared to what women go through:

You want to support that and not Facebook?

Yes, you can block people on Twitter. But only after the fact. If you have a public profile, which these women need to share their work, you’re opening the door for anyone to say they hope you get beaten or raped.

The other reason this rationale is wrong: You can indeed control what you see on Facebook.

Facebook has a help page that explains the process:

But the links you need aren’t always easy to find, so here are a few visuals to walk you through:

Making your own lists

Start from your FB home page. (Not your profile page.)

Look in the left-hand column. Note that you can also find “Groups” here — that’s another way to put together a restricted … um … group.

Hit “See More.” Scroll. Hit “Friend Lists.” You’re in business.

Adding people to those lists

You can retrace your steps to the Friend Lists page, which is best for bulk editing. But you can also add one person at a time, which is good when you see someone’s post and think, “Oh, I want that person on my Close Friends or my Alma Mater list.”

Why do this?

My stepmom was a delightful extrovert. As her condition declined, Facebook was her lifeline. She struggled to talk on the phone, but she could still type. She died a mere three days after her final post. She had some family with her, but she had hundreds more liking and commenting on her posts.

My friends are scattered all over, and in this time of COVID, I’m rarely getting together with friends who live a mile away. The two activities that have sustained me over the past couple of years have been curling and playing in a band at School of Rock. The band is playing, but it’s a little awkward these days. (Singing in the shower is one thing, but singing behind a shower curtain they put up for virus containment is much less fulfilling.) Curling has shut down for the entire season — by the time we get back, nearly 18 months will have passed. My new shoes are still sitting in my locker.

I don’t mind saying that I need Facebook. If someone with a whole bunch of money creates an alternative, I’ll happily check it out. (Or maybe someone with a bunch of money can buy the thing and force out Zuckerberg.) Until then, it’s the best thing we have for dealing with the isolation imposed on us by the modern world and a pandemic.

If you really don’t want to be on Facebook, fine. But you’d better comment on all my posts so I know you’re out there.