They Reappeared

Our social media blends a great resource for connecting to people with a toxic environment that has generated much public comment.  I've divorced myself from Sermo in toto.  My exploration of Twitter, which gives me access to some of the finest minds and most accomplished people, though typically as one of a quarter million followers, also immerses me with some people I'd try to avoid in person.  These do not let me choose my interactive partners.  For the same reason, I no longer read any responses to any of my public comments via Disqus, except from KevinMD where there is more of a professional bond between the participants.  

By far the largest platform, and the one dearest to me, has been Facebook.  My identified friends number less than 100.  I value it mostly to maintain contact with childhood acquaintances, some real friends, some who I've gotten to know better electronically.  To this day, I have never unfriended anyone I met through Ramapo Central School District #2.  Indeed, I have only ever unfriended one person who I knew personally, though a few who indirectly sought me out and pitched their political hardballs with too many curves.  I have declared people unwelcome, sometime in the form of a 30 day snooze but in a few circumstances, usually for being intrusive or of excessive sloganeering in lieu of the cognitive skills that our teachers aspired us to have, through the Unfollow option.  Not many, but not zero either.

I expect Facebook to respect my choice and not ask me to share my reason.  In fact, I really need no reason, though the reason is invariably annoyance to me and a more ethical one of not wanting to be induced to think of anyone I know in a deprecating way.  Alas, this week, two of the members of Unfollow Harem reappeared with the same types of initiated posts that prompted my initial opt-out of them decision.  The original action took a series of repetitively unwelcome communications, at least a dozen over short time interval.  And sometimes after failure of a snooze option to make me less sensitive to what I receive.  But once a well-considered unilateral Unfollow, which I have the capacity to reverse at any time, gets selected, my intent is permanent.

As the three notices from two individuals, with basically the same screeches that prompted my original action reappeared, my reaction was again to confirm another Unfollow.  I was not given that option.  As a solitary member among a billion or so global Facebook subscribers, I really don't have a way of fighting Facebook's City Hall or its algorithms.  I do have Unfriend, which seems an assault on my own level of tolerance, but I am adamant about remaining the master of my participation in modern social connectedness.