Please recommend a way to block a fragile friend

January 10, 2011 9:55 AM

What's the least hurtful way for me to get someone to stop commenting on every single thing I post to Facebook? This question is similar to this question, except this is about Facebook comments, rather than posts.

I have a Facebook friend that is a bit fragile and doesn't have many friends. She doesn't seem to have much to do and is always the first commenter on every single status update or photo I post. It's often not a particularly insightful comment - things along the lines of like "I feel the same way" and "I love [whatever it is you photographed]." In a way, it's not a big deal, but it is grating to see that "1 comment" right away and see that it's another one of those.

I know I can defriend her, but she'd be hurt. The same would for blocking all status updates and photos from her.

I can ask her to lay off, but I have no idea how to phrase that tactfully. "Hey, please stop commenting on so many of my posts. I don't like seeing you dominate my feed" is the best I can come up with, and that is going to be upsetting.

I'm annoyed, but not enough to cause harm to this rather harmless - but annoying - person. So, what's my best move here?

posted by anonymous to Technology (21 answers total)

Build a filter so that they only see an acceptable cross section of your content. (For example: no updates, only new pictures)

Facebook has some kind of group filtering that should allow this.
posted by Stagger Lee at 9:57 AM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

You could block some things from her- when you make a post, click the little lock on the bottom right and block her from seeing it. If you're not willing to consider de-friending her or blocking her, that's really all you can do. She's using Facebook for what it's for- seeing friend's posts and commenting on them.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:58 AM on January 10, 2011 [5 favorites]

Do you actually want to be friends with this individual or do you just not want to hurt her?
posted by BobbyDigital at 10:03 AM on January 10, 2011 [7 favorites]

I'd probably just block things selectively as ThePinkSuperhero is suggesting, so she sees some of what you post but not everything. She'll still comment on what she sees no doubt, but if your feed has less interesting things in there for her she may lose interest in general.
posted by shelleycat at 10:06 AM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

I would block her from whatever posts I didn't want to see her comment on. She could still see some comments/pictures. You can do that with the little lock icon at the bottom of the post. You can throw her some bones once in a while. It might be easier for you to not get annoyed by her comments when you're deciding what she's allowed to see, and therefore comment on.

If for some reason she ever catches on that she's not seeing all your posts, it's really easy to claim ignorance. "Oh Facebook is messed up, I don't know what happens, my posts disappear all the time, it's so annoying!!"

Basically exactly what Stagger Lee and The Pink Superhero say...

Don't de-friend or block her completely, it'll cause more drama than it's worth. And don't confront her, she'll get hurt by it and second guess everything she ever writes on everyone's posts.
posted by katypickle at 10:08 AM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

I would ask the same question as BobbyDigital. Moreover, you refer to her as though she is not particularly relevant to your offline life. If she's a Facebook friend only, then block her or drop her.
posted by jgirl at 10:13 AM on January 10, 2011

I have a list of people that I just don't think need to see every single thing I post to facebook. They are automatically excluded from what I post unless I use the little lock icon to choose "Everybody" -- that's easier to me than blocking one person every single time.
posted by Medieval Maven at 10:13 AM on January 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

This might be a little counterintuitive, and this is probably a tougher solution than what you're looking for, but try hanging out with this person if they aren't too annoying in real life. Often, people who are huge on Facebook are using it as a sort of surrogate for closer real-life contact (as you said she doesn't have many friends, it seems like that might be close to the problem). Introduce her to some of your friends, and if she does annoying things mention them in a constructive way that she can perceive as helpful rather than critical.

This is a really long term solution, and I'm also an RA at my university so I'm sort of built to try to do these sorts of things, but if you could help her get out of her shell and get more friends, she'll stop feeling the need to comment on everything you post on facebook.

Quicker solution, that's probably less uncomfortable: Just say on chat one day, "You know, you really don't need to comment on everything I post =P" or something to that effect. Hopefully it'll start a real conversation where you can say that you certainly don't mind talking to her, but it clogs up your feed and notifications and you'd rather talk on chat than have meaningless comments. Or suggest that she likes stuff instead of commenting.

Just make sure it's a conversation, rather than just a message. Convey why it bothers you, and hopefully she'll take it well. Honestly, short of blocking a bunch of posts from her (which I would feel a bit uncomfortable with, but YMMV), ANY option is going to be uncomfortable and risk hurting her. But I think having a conversation with her will help her no matter what.
posted by shabaabk at 10:21 AM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

click "customize" by the lock, you'll see a dialogue to selectively include or exclude people or lists. put her name in "exclude"
posted by randomkeystrike at 10:37 AM on January 10, 2011

I'm not so keen on the idea of filtering through the systems facebook has for this. What is going to happen if she sees on a mutual friend's facebook a post of yours that's invisible to her? Or a friend of yours mentions, "hey, did you see the photos anonymous put up, awesome!" and they're hidden to her. Are you sure there wouldn't be a danger of this?

Your friend doesn't sound that bad. I would suggest the change could come from you & you stop worrying about it, and know to ignore the first notification of a comment.

I have friends on facebook that go around adding other friends of mine that they don't know and who don't speak the same language. For me, that was strong enough reason for me to cut down sharing certain things, and prohibit posts on my wall. (I'm thinking of an alternative: closing commenting on my posts, and opening up the wall again. This allows me to share, but stops my friends annoying each other so directly)
posted by squishles at 10:46 AM on January 10, 2011

I think you have 3 options:
Get over it.
It is a little weird to have your posts stalked by someone and I can understand how it can get grating but why are you posting things for all your friends to see if not for that reason? I'd be happy that someone took enough interest in my updates to give kind comments. It's not like her words are embarrassing or hurtful.

Block her from all your posts.
You say you don't want to do that but setting up a specific group just for her where you have to think EVERY time you post something, "is this something I want to share with BlergBot?" would personally be even more grating. Why shoulder that type of responsibility just because you are afraid of maybe hurting someones feelings?

Remove her as a friend.
I have a Facebook friend
That's not how I would describe a real friend and you obviously don't want her participating in even something as trivial as a status update.

I don't think she's as fragile as you think but, to me, asking her to not comment on your posts is probably the most hurtful of all the choices.
posted by zephyr_words at 10:54 AM on January 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

If all she's doing is just commenting, then...I'm afraid I don't see the harm in just letting her go ahead. I have to admit I never even notice when anyone comments on any of my status updates or pictures unless I've gone back and looked myself, and if someone wants to always comment on my status updates, then so be it.

Is there a business presence you need to preserve, or does this person offend other people on your list in some way? If not, I'm not sure what the harm would be in just letting her go ahead and leave her comments and just ignoring them on your end, and then just not engaging her in any way beyond that.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:12 AM on January 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Nthing do not ask her to do anything, don't go there. Wait it out, maybe? She will move on eventually if you don't ever comment back.

A friend of mine deleted every post a certain person commented on - enough times for me, a bystander, to notice. I image the other person noticed, too. Because they stopped commenting. I thought it was a shitty thing to do. I find it interesting that both parties are still "friends" on FB, though.
posted by marimeko at 11:18 AM on January 10, 2011

The best move is to be kind and ignore it. It's not hurting you and presumably is bringing at least a small amount of pleasure to her life.
posted by frobozz at 11:34 AM on January 10, 2011

I don't think she's doing anything wrong. If you won't defriend her, let it be.
posted by tel3path at 11:56 AM on January 10, 2011

I wonder if there is a way to freeze your profile to her.... so that she sees no NEW content but can go wild with what she currently had access to. That's a feature I want but am not sure how to create....so that someone just gets the impression you've become stagnant rather than that they're missing any content.... which ALWAYS gets noticed. At least, by my bloody friends, it does.
posted by taff at 12:29 PM on January 10, 2011

In the spirit of being kind, because you never know what kind of battles other people are fighting, I'd say just let it go. You acknowledge that it's harmless, so maybe just make it a habit to not check your Facebook stuff until there are at least 2 comments.
posted by Quietgal at 12:30 PM on January 10, 2011 [7 favorites]

You could find a way to view her comments more positively, like every time you see one of her comments, you drink a glass of water, or do your favorite yoga pose, or something else you've wanted to incorporate into your daily life. I've done that sort of thing with stopping at red lights.
posted by Ellemeno at 12:31 PM on January 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

I understand the frustration. My mother is the first commenter on nearly all my FB posts, even if she doesn't understand the context or the joke. I've done what some other posters have suggested and type her name in the little customise box to exclude her from some of my updates - not all of them, just the ones that are more aimed at friends or the ones I know she'll frustrate me with.
posted by andraste at 1:43 PM on January 10, 2011

If I were you, I'd just click that little lock button to exclude her, just to give other people a chance to comment first. Then unblock her later so she can see it/comment if she wishes. She'd probably assume it didn't show up on her feed right away for some screwy fb reason.
posted by KLF at 8:35 PM on January 10, 2011

I was successful in a forum when I said to someone who was always butting in to my conversations with other members.

For example, I said "So Username, how did you ship that package? FedEx? USPS?" and Pest jumped in and said "Only way to know is to contact Username." I said "That's why I posted in this thread, to ask Username a question. Look, Pest, you seem to be interested in commenting on everything even when it doesn't concern you. Kindly wait for Username to reply to my question." The person did not seem offended at all and stopped jumping in.
posted by IndigoRain at 9:18 PM on January 10, 2011