Facebook Friends Going A Little Political For My Taste!

[Hollanda]

Right. I love Facebook and all my friends are OK on there. Well, most of them.

I have noticed two of my friends (in real life) have started making every single comment into a political debate on my wall and then getting mad with me when I simply do not agree. I am not interested in political statements on Facebook, to me that is not what it is for: It is for posting pictures of my baby and for putting light hearted random comments on, with no intention to offend anyone or upset people. That is just the way I choose to use it. Anyway, in the past 2 weeks I have had 2 friends decide to use my wall to "teach" me their political leanings. I have no interest in being taught. I was thinking of writing a small statement to make this clear. Is this a good idea or should I just leave well alone and ignore these 2?

In addition, I just saw on my feed that "Graeme" posted to "Adam" something along the lines of: "Having fun with the idiots again, mate? You can't talk to people like that. Stop giving them the facts and they will continue in blissful ignorance". This is just seconds after "Adam" corrected me on a story I noticed on our daily news programme about a woman who had apparently "created" 10 children for the purpose of claiming benefits to which she was not entitled. His rather snarky comment was "It was 6, I think you will find." No, no, it was 10 according to the news programme. Anyway, that matters little. If Graeme had made the comment before Adam's "correction" I would think it had nothing to do with me. As it is, I don't know.

I just know that these two men will go to any lengths on anyone's wall to make a perfectly ordinary argument into something to do with politics and not everyone shares their rather blinkered views.

I am quite happy to leave it. Just wondered what people think,

[Bibliophile]

Some people turn every post into politics & some turn every post into ones about their children - to each his/her own.  If you don't want to ignore it, you can ask them to stop via PM, defriend them or set up your wall so that they cannot post. 

[TurtleDove]

POD to Bibliophile.  I would add that if you really do not want a political debate, don't make your politics known.  I don't ever have anyone post anything political in response to my comments or posts, and I have a lot of friends who are quite political (all over the board, no pun intended).  I would imagine this is because no one knows where I stand and knows I would not care what their political views are and would not engage them in any sort of discussion or debate.

[Hollanda]

It was nothing to do with politics  I have just amended my privacy settings so neither of these two can respond to my posts. They can still see stuff I post, they just cannot respond.

That may be all that is needed for the moment.

It is odd, never had this issue before now, really! A couple of mutual friends have noticed and PMd me to tell me not to take it personally. So I know it is not just me.

[Moray]

It's always annoying when someone has a thing they just can't. let. go., whether it's politics or not.

I think the best you can do is either, hide, block or defriend, depending on how much it annoys you.

[Bibliophile]

Could it possibly be a response to any posts that you've posted on their walls?  Sort of like a 'pay-back' or something?

ETA: I'm adding as I feel that was sort of beating around the bush to what I really wanted to say.   Please do not take this the wrong way, no malice intended, but I've noticed that throughout your pregnancy you were able to mention said pregnancy in quite a number of posts that had nothing to with the subject of babies and/or pregnancy.  It's been the same with your baby - the baby gets brought up an awful lot in posts.  I do understand how excited you were/are about the whole motherhood experience, but maybe your friends are using politics as a passive-aggressive way to express their feelings about all the baby talk.

[NyaChan]

I believe access to welfare and the strain of welfare fraud is considered a political issue for many people.  That may be why the political response happened, though of course the third party post was just rude. 

Personally, I just keep quiet about my political views, precisely because I don't want to debate them with my friends.  I have a friend who is so used to people who disagree with his views immediately jumping into debate mode that he is apparently convinced I share his political views (I don't) because I just listen when he talks about it and don't agree or disagree. 

ETA:  I forgot to add, you probably did the right thing by just preventing them from responding.  I doubt the general message asking people to stop doing it would really work - just draws attention to the issue you know?  This way the thing that bothers you - their responses - just won't happen anymore.

[TurtleDove]

and then getting mad with me when I simply do not agree

This is what I was addressing.  How would they know you do not agree?  If you really don't want politics involved in your facebook, don't make your politics known.

[Hollanda]

I said quite simply "I don't agree with what you are saying" in a PM. I also asked politely please that politics was not discussed.

And re the whole baby thing...it is my wall and fine, people don't want to see it all the time (I tend to get blocks of 20 mins or so when I post, whilst DF is here playing with DS or DS is asleep), and I do post about him. I could understand annoyance occurring if I posted on someone else's wall about DS, but I don't. I get more people querying after my DS than anything else, so it is clear that the majority of people see it as nothing more than being a proud mum. Anyway, that is not what this is about.  Also: by no means are all my posts about DS. Nowhere near. I post about stupid things, things I have seen out and about, whatever is on TV, you know? In any case if someone does not like my talk about DS, they do not have to comment and they can of course hide my posts.  PA behaviour is rude, if that indeed is what they were trying to do.

It doesn't really matter to me as to really why these people have decided to do this now, but as I said, others have commented to me, so I don't feel victimised or anything like that.

I am satisfied that what I have done is right for the moment.

[TurtleDove]

I said quite simply "I don't agree with what you are saying" in a PM.

My point is that this did not need to be said, and essentially invited them to continue.

[Moray]

I said quite simply "I don't agree with what you are saying" in a PM.

My point is that this did not need to be said, and essentially invited them to continue.

This, exactly. If I received such a PM, I would interpret it as an invite to continue the conversation. Actually, in light of being restricted from responding to your posts, I'd be inclined to interpret it as a PA attempt to get the last word in.

[Betelnut]

For some people--which includes a lot of my friends and myself occasionally--Facebook is "for" posting political views and sarcastic responses to the world's events.  Neither your use of Facebook or my friends' use is wrong.  Just different.

[TootsNYC]

It was nothing to do with politics 

Welfare is definitely politics.

 I have just amended my privacy settings so neither of these two can respond to my posts. They can still see stuff I post, they just cannot respond. \

I didn't know you could do this! Cool!!

[Bibliophile]

Maybe I was misinterpreted, I didn't mean that you post too much about your son on your own wall.  I was just using your eHell posts as a barometer for what your FB responses on their own walls might be like - if they might post something unrelated to children & you've responded by bringing up your son in some way.   It wouldn't make their posts on your wall any less annoying, but it would've shined a light on as to why they might be doing it. 

[Hollanda]

Aaaaaaaaaah you know what? All sorted now. And I just had a PM back from one of them apologising. Turns out he wants to be a councillor for a party I have zero interest in and admitted he was being a little over sensitive about the whole thing. He's not wrong, I'm not wrong, we got a little crossed wires.

Re: the story I posted on, it was not really from a political point of view but I guess I can see why someone would've responded that way.