Tag: profiles

Harmful and Disturbing Images on Facebook

On By Michel McDonaldIn FacebookLeave a comment

facebook-police

What purpose does Facebook serve for most people?  They get on there to talk to their friends, family, co-workers and classmates.  It’s a great way to keep in touch with everyone, despite those pesky views and opinions that they might have that differs from yours, which can sometimes hurt your or their feelings.  But besides that, it’s a great tool for keeping the lines of communication open.

Pages are different from profiles because they promote books, games, musicians, actors, movies, TV shows, magazines, newspapers, bloggers etc.  You name it, there is a page for it.  There are some pages however that are more of an idea than a brand and anyone can make one and have thousands or millions of fans.  Every time you like their image or status update, all of your friends see it too, which is good for the page because that is how things go viral.  That’s not always a good thing.

There are people out there, very sick, twisted and disturbing people who create a page with the intent of harming others or causing drama to stir the pot.  I have seen and even reported pages because they had pornography (child and/or adult) or they had harmful images like dead animals or even children.  Yes, I said dead children.  Believe me, it’s not an easy thing to talk about, or an easy thing to think about.  I saw that image tonight and when I tried to report it, I got a message saying I couldn’t report it.  I thought that maybe it had been removed, but it hadn’t because I tried looking for it again and it was there.  I finally did report it.

Nobody should have to see such graphic images like that.  I don’t care if it’s an animal rights organization showing pictures of dead animals in a pot (yes, I had to see that image too) or if it’s dead children being posted as a joke just to get a rise out of people.  It’s not a joke, it’s not funny, those were someones children and they died and they are making fun of them and it’s not right.  I don’t want to see that and I don’t want you or your children to have to see it either.

What is happening in the world when people post such horrific graphic content and think it’s funny?  What kind of sick people are out there?  That is not funny at all!  I am avoiding bedtime because I know that I’m going to have nightmares about those children.  I saw a “Faces of Death” video clip many years ago and I had nightmares for weeks.  I am just not mentally prepared to have to see things like that.

I’m sorry, I don’t mean to vent like this but I’m just so disgusted with the human race.  Everyone is entitled to their opinion and free speech and blah blah blah, but there has to be a limit to free speech.  Those “free speech” images shouldn’t be allowed on the internet.

I am not the internet police, but you can be damn sure that I will report as many harmful images or hate speech posts as I can.  I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore!

I honestly feel sick to my stomach right now.

Update:  Okay so I just got an email from Facebook about the image of the dead children.  This is what they said:

“Thank you for your report. We carefully reviewed the photo you reported, but found it doesn’t violate our community standard on graphic violence so we didn’t remove it.”

Really Facebook?  If I was sick to my stomach a few minutes ago when I published this post, you can bet I feel really sick now.  I need to go soak in a hot bath and just meditate for a bit.  I’m out for now.

Facebook Unfriending Glitch

On By Michel McDonaldIn Facebook, TwitterLeave a comment

PD*17087469

Have you noticed that your friends list number has dropped on Facebook and you can’t figure out why, or who unfriended you?  That seems to have happened to me a few times already in the last few months.

It first happened a few months ago when I had gotten into a bit of an argument with a long time friend.  I noticed that my friends number had gone down by 3 exactly, and it just turned out that her, her son and their roommate had all unfriended me.  I went to each of their Facebook profiles and the “Add Friend” button was active, which meant we were no longer friends.  I was more pissed off about that than the actual argument that we had which seemed like nothing compared to ending a friendship.  I emailed her asking her if she unfriended me and she responded the next day telling me that they did not unfriend me, that it must be a glitch.  I didn’t friend any of them back, I gave them the opportunity to send me the friend request, and only my friend sent it and not her son and their roommate.

At first I thought “yeah right, glitch, uh huh.”  I didn’t believe it was a glitch for a second, but when the friend request finally came, bygones were bygones and it was all water under the bridge.

A couple of days ago I noticed that someone had unfriended and blocked me on Facebook and unfollowed and blocked me on Twitter and I found out that it wasn’t personal, she just didn’t want to be friends on social websites with people she doesn’t actually know in person.  I get that, it hurt my feelings, but I understood.  But my Facebook friend number had dropped, not just by 1 friend but by 5.  I thought I must have said something that was so offensive that I am just losing people in droves, but as I was going through my list of friends, I had noticed that some of them were still in there, but they had deactivated their accounts so that was why I didn’t see them anymore.

One friend in particular did unfriend me, or so I thought.  We have known each other for 8 or 9 years from playing EverQuest.  We have never actually met, but we have spoken on the phone and played EQ together for hours a day.  We haven’t really spoken in quite some time though because she rarely ever goes on Facebook.  That’s why it was shocking that she had unfriended me.  I asked her if I said or did something wrong and she responded to me telling me that she never unfriended me at all, that it must be a Facebook glitch.  She and I have never had an issue, so I believe her when she said that.  I have no reason to believe that she would be deceptive with me.

So, if you have lost friends on Facebook, don’t take it as personally as I did, perhaps it’s a glitch or perhaps they deactivated their account because of how dramatic Facebook can be.  Oy vey can it be dramatic *SMH*.  It never hurts to ask, and when you do ask, be kind because they probably thought you unfriended them.