Do you think it's fair to "police" what your friends say on FaceBook?

I don’t really know. Anything posted by anyone,anywhere especially social sites,is out there in the great bit-bucket for the world to see. I can remind people of that, but that’s as far as I go. Not sure if that constitutes policing.

I think it is your friend’s prerogative to police what shows up in her news feed. I often hide posts that I think are too polemic.

Facebook is a huge social experiment. We are seeing all kinds of attempts to enforce social mores. Employers are using it to police employees. Friends are using it to clean each others’ mouths out with soap.

Me? I stay away. I haven’t logged in in some weeks. There’s really little there for me. I’m not sure why others like it, but I guess they do.

If it helps. I think your friend is an asswipe. Though not one I’d use. Now get the hell off Facebook before it corrupts you even more.

I don’t know that it’s really fair to tell them they’re not allowed to say certain things, but I guess it’s fair, in a way, to warn about deleting people before it happens.

I recently deleted someone for having excessive diarrhea of the mouth. She actually posted, on her page, about having to leave work because she had an accident and had diarrhea running down her legs. What the serious fuck? Who needs to read that?

I am seriously considering deleting two others because they are nothing but attention whores who post daily titty photos of themselves, and at least two daily “woe is me” statuses. Yeah it’s your wall, but grow a fucking brain.

I can see someone having a problem with “fuck” if their kids read their page, but I would understand them deleting me for it. I won’t talk about shitting myself or post titty pictures, but I will continue to swear. :)

Police? No. Actually that sounds like parenting to me.

I’d delete the person in FB land and in real life.

She isn’t policing what you say (or write), she is policing what she sees. That’s her right. She just set out her boundaries. You don’t have to live within them.

@marinelife thanks – I had to actually go look up the word polemic yay for learning new words even when I fit their definitions I suppose – ha ha

“Hi, i’m Ted Bundy & facebook is my car.”
Police, help…someone call the police!!

She isn’t telling you what to do, she’s telling you in advance what _she _ will do. Fair warning. I would delete her from my account if it annoyed me and interfered with my chosen vocabulary. What the fuck.

@wundayatta I agree to a certain extent – I tend to think it’s ignorant, bigotted & fear based to avoid reality simply because we don’t like it but at the same time if we don’t want to see things we shouldn’t have to see them especially in cases where we actually have the controls over it all.

@WillWorkForChocolate I’m with you – I won’t be changing what I say unless I feel the need on my own behalf, but power to her for controlling her own environment. I don’t delete folks much from my facebook but if people use particular language within the comments on my posts or by posting some craziness on my wall I may have to jettison them off the friends list.

@SpatzieLover I think you are right to a particular extent but for me I would say that the better parent would never let their child have access to their adult account in the first place be it because they had the password or because the parent left it out in the open to be seen. Even in cases where all your friends are as polite and clean mouthed as a cartoon character on the Jesus channel it’s not a child’s place to get into the personal business of their parents and if a parent allows such things then I would say they’re lacking in the parenting department to a particular extent.

Nah, I don’t police anyone. I’m a firm believer in the ‘live and let live’ policy, but I do encourage anyone who sees my posts or anyone else’s as offensive, to feel free to delete me at will- I could care less really.

@Bellatrix You’re right – that’s the reason I told her goodbye in advance. I simply commented on her post saying that I was going to say goodbye now because I knew it would be inevitable that I would have the “f” word come out of my mouth and onto my FB page. I was a sailor in the navy for 8 years it’s a part of our training

@Sunny2 great answer – If I could click that one more than once I would give a multitude of points for your answer

@KNOWITALL I’m with you – I fancy a spirited debate over attempts to control others & pretend the high and mighty as I delete the hoodlums off my friends list but power to folks who are into deleting folks and thinking it makes a difference.

I meant to say, @Jenniehowell, she is trying to parent others. If she were parenting herself or her kids, she’d just hide things that offend her.

I personally allow my son full access to my FB account. He likes to play an app on it and likes to look at a few of his favorite toy pages.

I’m certain he sees the “f” word. He never says anything about it. I have a certain zombie loving FB friend (that also loves chocolate, cough. cough). I hide any bloody photos that come up, as the image would be too much for the little fella.

It is her account, however, she should know how to use FB by now. There are plenty of ways to hide, and privatize without the need of an announcement that she’ll delete. That’s where, IMO, it comes off as attempting to parent others.

This conversation happened in my house over the weekend:

“Mama, what does motherfucker mean?”

“It’s a mean word grownups say when they are angry and can’t think of a better word to use.”

“The motherfuckers made Daddy mad when he was driving.”

“Yep, they’ll do that. Please don’t use that word anymore”

“Ok, Mama.”

Seriously. That’s all it takes. No fights, no notices… Just talk to the child and explain things in a way they can understand. No need to parent the friends on the internet.

@SpatzieLover gotcha – yes in that case I definitely don’t need a parent. Through this discussion on FB though I did come to the knowing that you can actually block the standard curse words from your page using your settings and it will change words like Fucking to look like Qbert was there &*^%$&#

@Seek_Kolinahr You just described my home. ;)

@Seek_Kolinahr that reminds me of a conversation I had with my father as a child. Unfortunately he was a science teacher and unfortunately I asked him “dad… what is a dickhead?” He proceeded to answer with charts and graphs that took up my Saturday morning cartoon time.

Wow, I find both the question and many of the responses quite intriguing. I personally don’t have this problem since most of my friends are smart enough to be able to construct a sentence without inserting the F-word constantly. I also don’t see it as parenting it’s a simple statement that if you can’t manage a sentence without it, do it elsewhere. I would agree however that if those rules are too strict for you unfriend them. You’ll both be happier for it.

@Jaxk One of the pages I ‘follow’ on Facebook is called “I F*cking Love Science” so by @Jenniehowell‘s friends discretion, I’d be deleted as a friend for sharing some of my fav science facts.

@Jaxk One of my favourite Facebook pages is “I Fucking Love Science”. If someone completely blinds themselves to awesome, educational entertainment because there’s an “f-word” at the top of the page, their loss.

Ha ha @SpatzieLover . Jinx!

God lord, it’s only the internet. Get out and enjoy the real world people and stop being overly dramatic. She’s just looking for attention.

There was a heated debate over on Fluther not long ago. I told my girlfriend about it. Her response :I can’t believe that people are arguing with other people…over the internet.

@Jaxk & @SpatzieLover I follow the “I fucking love science” page as well among others with the F word in them. I appreciate curse words and feel as if they have a time and a place. For instance even though I was a navy sailor I never ran around cursing when I was escorting VIP’s all over my city, however, I did curse when in conversation with my buddies and still do.

Using curse words in basic every day conversation isn’t a sign of a lack of intelligence but not knowing when it is inappropriate likely is. If it’s my personal space (i.e. my page on FB or my own wall) then I will feel free to say what I want & if people delete me because they are too ignorant to recognize diversity or too dainty to taint their virgin ears then I’m not gonna be hurt by them deleting me off their list – in fact in this particular case if I am to be deleted at some point in the future by this friend I won’t be offended at all because at least she was courteous enough to let me know the reason in advance.

This inspired me to do a friend purge on Facebook. I feel better. :D

Do we all like I Fucking Love Science? How funny!

Because IFLS is AWESOME.

Can you believe we’ve named a neuron? I was part of that! Woo!

@Jenniehowell I would do exactly what you did, for exactly the same reasons.

@Jenniehowell I don’t know anyone that would care if someone deletes them or not, but it is kind of odd for me to have a priest and my mom, then my crazy friends, then co-workers, but luckily everyone is pretty much like me and just let’s it go. :)

@SpatzieLover I fucking love I Fucking Love Science.

What I mean is, it’s up to her. If she wants to, her choice. At least you gave her a heads up stating that you’re deleting her.

@Jenniehowell

Just out of curiosity, did you feel censored or policed when with VIPs? Or was it just that private conversations are different than public conversations and you know that? Facebook is not exactly a private conversation and what is posted there does reflect on you. You may be perfectly fine with the word but it seems you also know that others may not be.

Personally I have no issue with the word but I also have no problem respecting the boundaries of others.

@Jaxk I didn’t do it with the VIPs because I was at work & therefore in order to abide by the level of profession that fit my uniform, rank and other things I stuck to a particular level of behavior. I don’t have that same restriction on myself in situations that are not professional.

I am totally and perfectly fine not using curse words when posting to the walls of others on FB or when commenting on their posts but on my own page – it’s my rules. Kinda like in my car. If I’m driving – I choose the station – someone else wants to choose the station we are listening to when we are in my car and I’m the one driving then they ask – they don’t tell. If I was in their car it would be the same. I don’t expect that FB should be much different.

I don’t go on FB anymore. But I have to ask what the fuck < yaah I said it lol are her kids reading her FB page for? Seriously, is nothing sacred anymore?

My daughter wasn’t even allowed to go on facebook until she was 16 and by that age she knows the words.

So how old are these kids, what are we talking like 7, 8? Why are they on the internet? Ok I can see the conversation, “Kids, people who swear are bad, we don’t talk to people who swear on the internet.”

Like, the f bomb is not the predator to her children on the internet.

How about telling her to police her toddlers to stay offline and away from not the f bomb but start policing them how to use social sites so they don’t fall into the hands of sexual predators!!

@Jenniehowell

I thought the original question was about posting on your friend’s page. Otherwise I have no disagreement with your last post.

No – she was saying she’d delete folks just for saying it at all – even on their own pages or walls. To each his own I suppose

I can’t stand it when parents overly shelter their kids from things like that. Yeah, because your kid will NEVER hear or see the word “fuck” if you delete Facebook friends with potty mouths. I don’t know how old this lady’s kids are, but they probably use that word with their friends at school and she doesn’t know it. If they can log into your Facebook and they can read, they probably know “the f word” as well. What’s so hard about telling them it’s a bad word that they shouldn’t use? Do people not talk to their kids anymore?

Like those parents that are angered by gay PDAs. “What am I supposed to tell my kid when he asks why two men are kissing?” Uh, how exactly is that anyone’s problem but your own? And welcome to the real world.

She has the right to delete whoever she wants for whatever reason, but the “logic” behind it is stupid.

She’s power tripping. People do that.

Do people not know how to just hide the shit they don’t want to see on FB? Fuck. IFLS is all sorts of awesome.

@livelaughlove21 My family shelters my little cousin so much that I was told I couldn’t sing Black Betty with him, he’s going to hate them when he grows up, blah…

@livelaughlove21 amen to what you said. Sheltering children creates children who become little judgmental and bullying adolescents & those bullying adolescents become adults who act like adolescents only they are now in charge of people at jobs and are responsible for others through their right to vote. The hell these people create by sheltering their children in unbalanced and unrealistic ways is much larger than the hell of having to deal with teaching your kid lessons.