Facebook help...?

[taxi4ballet]

Hi all, I wonder if there is somebody who could help me with this please!

 

A family friend of ours (nice person but more of an acquaintance really) post literally dozens of times on Facebook every day, and it is really clogging up my news feed. It's starting to drive me potty - he is obviously a really keen Facebooker and posts literally hundreds of photos, links, you name it.

 

Something like 90% of my news feed every day is taken up with yards of junk posted by him and it's getting ridiculous now... I don't want to offend him and his wife by un-friending him (or whatever you call it.. is that right?) but is there some way I can stop seeing all this endless drivel, preferably without him knowing?

[swanprincess]

At the top of the post, where it says "John Smith 'liked' this photo" etc, there is a small, grey, downwards pointing arrow. Click on it, and it comes up with the options; one of which is to 'unfollow' him, which you can do. You are still friends- so if you go onto his profile you can see his posts and he still sees yours- but his posts (theoretically!) won't come up in your newsfeed x

[taxi4ballet]

Ah, wonderful - thank you.

[LinMM]

Yes this is correct as I recently was told this in the Apple store where I have occasional lessons after putting up for months with some fairly obnoxious material being posted by Britain First. I don't know how it started I must have accidently liked something but most of their stuff was awful and felt embarrassed it was in my newsfeed.

 

I couldn't believe how easy it was to stop these posts by just going on that arrow!!

 

What I don't know is whether some message will come up for your friend saying he is now being unfollowed by you! Or whether it just happens without him realising.

[All4dancers]

Another option is to 'hide' posts, again by clicking on grey arrow.

[Jan McNulty]

Yes this is correct as I recently was told this in the Apple store where I have occasional lessons after putting up for months with some fairly obnoxious material being posted by Britain First. I don't know how it started I must have accidently liked something but most of their stuff was awful and felt embarrassed it was in my newsfeed.

 

I couldn't believe how easy it was to stop these posts by just going on that arrow!!

 

What I don't know is whether some message will come up for your friend saying he is now being unfollowed by you! Or whether it just happens without him realising.

 

Re Britain First - they probably started as "sponsored posts" that maybe one of your friends liked in all innocence.  They come up in my timeline too so I will try the arrow trick next time I see one.

 

I got into a right mess at the start of this year (and I am supposed to be it literate!) because I liked a page that seemed good and several of my friends had liked.  Anyway I filled in a form to hear about offers, including stupidly my mobile phone number, and the next thing is that a number of charges were being applied to my mobile bill.  Fortunately I realised what was happening very quickly and Vodafone were very helpful in blocking the numbers as well as me "STOP"ing the texts.  The only thing is that I also had these types of numbers blocked altogether and I can no longer text donate.

[Fiz]

I remember that, Jan. Grr, on your behalf.

[LinMM]

That sounds awful it is all too easy to get mixed up in something that one doesn't realise what one is getting mixed up in so to speak.....sorry about awful phrasing!!

[taxi4ballet]

The other thing I get heaps of in my newsfeed, are those quizzes where you answer questions, and it tells you your ideal job, which Disney Princess you are, or what sort of animal you were in a previous life!

[Melody]

Britain First is a Facebook page, not an individual; if you don't want to see their posts, just go to the page and hit Unlike.

 

Those quizzes are a bit annoying - I tend to not click on them because a lot of them start wanting personal information before giving the results. I've always been mindful of what I heard someone say about Facebook years ago: the members aren't the customers of Facebook, the members are the product; the advertisers are the customers.

 

Another thing that gets me is when I see posts from friends saying stuff like "let's see how good a friend you are" and then wants people to post something equivalent on their own feed. My feeling there is that good friends don't ask their friends to do stuff like that!

Edited August 27, 2014 by Melody

[taxi4ballet]

And don't get me started on the dreaded 'Ice Bucket Challenge'

[Jan McNulty]

I never "liked" Britain First and I still get posts on my timeline because friends "like" them.

[Anjuli_Bai]

The other day I wrote a short paragraph - a reminisce of going back to school as child after summer off.  Almost immediately the ads on the right side of my FB page started showing "back to school" items and sales.

[LinMM]

Me too Janet I never went to their Facebook page the posts just started coming and I wasn't sure how etc.

 

I just hope I'm not annoying my friends by liking quite a few ballet pages......perhaps they get RAD posts they dont want!!

[Melody]

I run a couple of groups over there and have noticed that friends of mine who aren't members seem to be getting the group posts in their feed. I don't know if there's a way to stop it, but I wish FB wouldn't force-feed stuff to people who haven't shown any interest in it. You can't just assume that people will be interested in a topic just because their friends are, and as long as people can choose to join groups if they want to, they shouldn't have to put up with stuff from groups they don't belong to.

 

Which brings me to another FB gripe, which is the way that people can add their friends to groups without permission. I've found myself being a member of all sorts of weird groups I have no interest in because a friend has added me. Not sure if it's still going on, but a few months ago it was out of control.

[2dancersmum]

I get constant pictures of mutilated animals from a friend campaigning for stopping cruelty to animals all over the world - my newsfeed will have 20 or so posts at once but I cannot stop them coming without blocking all posts from said friend (which I don't want to do as then I would miss important school stuff too).  The arrow does not work as they are posts 'via' and not from the various organisations themselves.  Still 'ice bucket challenge' dominates at the moment along with increasingly frequent comments about wasting water when so many people in the world have no access to fresh water and calls to donate to water aid instead

[taxi4ballet]

I must admit I'm not all that fond of being press-ganged into donating to something just because somebody on Facebook has sent it to me, or donated themselves and wants everyone to know all about it.

 

Recently, we've had a few of the 'GoFundMe' ones, asking for help in funding dance training. Enterprising of them, and very good luck too, but er... at the moment every penny we have goes to our own dd's training!

[mimi66]

That reminds me of something...

 

One of the amusing posts doing the round on FB at the moment about the Ice bucket challenge..

 

 

"It's called "leaving  the house" in Scotland!".

[Lisa O`Brien]

...and Northern Ireland. After a beautiful sunny day today it`s now absolutely throwing it down, and the wind is howling. Guess Blackie the cat will want to sleep indoors tonight.