Facebook nastiness . . . in the name of Christianity

[Fritzies Mom]

I have seen two of those "if you agree with this, copy and paste it as your status" posts tonight, regarding the greeting "Merry Christmas" as opposed to "Happy Holidays." I don't have a problem per se with telling everyone and their dogs, regardless of religious beliefs, "Merry Christmas" if that's what floats your boat . . . although I seriously suspect that these people who are so adamant not to say "Happy Holidays" would be offended at being wished a "Happy Hannukah" or some such. What I do have a MAJOR problem with is that this new status meme says, in so many words, "This is our custom and if you don't like it, you can LEAVE and I will help you pack."

Um . . . I guess they don't realize that our country was founded on diversity and freedom of religion and we have citizens of all different faiths, including agnostics and atheists.

Anyway, I called out the first person who posted this. By the way, this person has also posted the Confederate flag twice on her wall. Whatever . . . I just hid it. That post tonight just hit me way wrong with its wording and her added redneck commentary. Right after I responded, she removed the post. Not long after, she posted a rant about how dare anyone tell her what she can and can't post on her wall and she was tired of teachers lording their education and knowledge over her. WTF?! She didn't go to college - her choice. But why rant about someone who did get an education and go into teaching? I didn't lord it over her, I pointed out the fallacies in what she was saying and said that it was wrong to tell someone to leave this country because they disagree with you. She ranted on and on and others began to chime in. It soon became obvious that they were talking about me because they began to reference the post she'd removed.

So I defriended. I'm really pissed about it though because I admin a group for our hometown and she is a member. We had an incident a few weeks ago where another member started harassing her via PM. She reported it to me, and he wound up getting banned. I had her back. But I'm supposed to just sit back and let that racist crap go by without a comment.

I'm just really tired of the ignorance and small-mindedness. I have friends who are gay/lesbian - one very dear friend from high school/college - as well as some who are atheist, agnostic, Hindu, and Muslim. Also many conservative Christians. And my husband is a Christian studying Buddhism. But I will not tolerate them attacking each other. I just won't.

Sorry, y'all. I just had to get this all off my chest, and this is a safe place to do so.

[Fritzies Mom]

It gets worse . . .

I went into the group I admin later on to check posts and all of her posts were gone. A search for her came up blank. I know she hasn't left the group because the number of members is the same as earlier and no one can add new members except me and my co-admin, and she is rarely on her computer anymore.

So the biotch blocked me.

I have no way of seeing her posts and, as an admin, this is not fair to me nor to the other members. I've sent my co-admin a message about it and I just have to wait for her to take action and remove that person from our group. In the meantime, I've had to lock the group so that only admins can post. I hate doing that, but I don't see any alternative.

I feel like I'm herding freaking cats . . .

[BenzMama]

So sorry you've been subjected to such idiocy. Sadly, too many believe that opinions different from their own are simply wrong & get highly torqued when they are called out. My gene pool is full of that sort.

[jimzmum]

I am sorry, too.

[chickypea]

Good for you!!! You did the right thing and she reacted like the idiot I suppose she is.

[lucky1]

Your experience is why I won't post to Facebook, or in fact, to too many online sites. It's really counter to my goals to have a healthy and happy life to allow strangers to influence my well-being. I won't become involved with toxic people IRL, doesn't make sense to do so online.

I think you have to ask yourself what you are getting out of this experience. It's not healthy to get so upset over something a stranger said online. Since it's difficult if not impossible to control others' behavior, all you can do is control your own behavior even if that involves ignoring what others say or do. I wish you insight and strength to deal with this situation.

Just my opinion and I don't expect those involved with Facebook or other online sites to share it.

[Fritzies Mom]

Lucky, she isn't a stranger to me. We attended the same high school, a couple of years apart. I can't remember for certain if we ever had classes together, but we knew each other back then. We have never been close friends, but she always seemed nice. I probably wouldn't feel so gobsmacked about this if she'd been a complete stranger.

I am still waiting to hear back from my co-admin. I know she's been on FB, but she accesses it from her phone, and I'm not sure she has even read my PM's. I'm seriously about ready to remove myself from that group and just leave it to them. My co-admin is a former student of mine and she brought me in to help out because she isn't on her computer much and we were having problems with spam and trolls. I've been able to keep the fires put out, but I just can't deal with someone hiding from me. And the lack of response from my co-admin (and she knows that I've sent her PM's because I posted on her wall to check them and she asked back, "What is going on?") is stressing me out.

Maybe I just need to take a break from FB for awhile . . . . ???

[crowjane]

I too wonder what the allure of Facebook is. In a world already so complicated why would anyone that doesn't need to be on Facebook (work or business presence) be on Facebook.
Fritzie is a case in point. I've read so many here on the board people getting upset because of Facebook postings.
I don't belong because I personally don't want to add more ca-ching to the Zucks wallet. Plus if I haven't heard fom someone in years, it's mostly because I don't want to. Anyone that knows me knows how to contact me. Anyone that knew me in the past can easily find me it's not very hard to do.

Sorry Fritz, just pondering here, I hope you can move on and leave it behind you.

[Fritzies Mom]

Well, it just gets funner and funner. NOT.

I did some searching on the facebook user forums and found out how to remove someone from a group who has blocked the admin and was going to try that . . . then I found the person listed and was able to ban her. Took care of that . . . or so I thought.

A couple of days go by and then she has one of her friends send me a nasty message through a PM. Actually, I think this person reported the group. Biggest bunch of hooey I ever read. I happened to catch the message on my phone when DH and I were out running errands, and I wasn't able to do much about it then. I just let the person know that she didn't have the whole story about why her friend got banned and that it was not our policy to discuss it with anyone but the person involved.

Then I got home to find a message from the person I'd had the original problem with. I explained why she'd been banned - blocking an administrator and that it had nothing to do with what she'd posted on her wall. We went back and forth on a few messages and she continued to insist that she was banned because of what she'd posted on her wall. Sigh . . . finally blocked her.

I am just so done with this nonsense. I'm going to talk to the group owner about it, but I really need to take myself out of the group and just let them have it. It's causing me too much stress.

[Fritzies Mom]

Oh, and on a positive note - I might have a chance to do some online tutoring soon. Extra $ for me!!!

[kayhil]

I don't put up with that stuff. I've "unfriended" people who annoy me.

[DecoMom]

What an unfortunate mess! Some folks are simply unreasonable, in the purest sense of the word. You are much tougher than I am for even considering being an admin — I fear my skin would never be thick enough to put up with that sort of thing. Especially from people whom I know.

[Fritzies Mom]

Originally Posted by kayhil

I don't put up with that stuff. I've "unfriended" people who annoy me.

I did, and it's what started this $#!@ storm.

[SJR]

I cannot for the life of me get interested in Facebook. I joined and may log in and look at my page about once a week, maybe! I had a dear friend to unfriend me just because there was someone I was friends with and she didn't like her. It broke my heart! Of course, she denied unfriending me! Story of my life!

[Fritzies Mom]

A final update - I tried to appeal to the group owner to step up and take more of an active role in the group so that I could step down, as the stress was making me ill . . . and you know what she did? SHE REMOVED HERSELF FROM THE GROUP AND LEFT ME TWISTING IN THE WIND. I effin' kid you not.

So I posted on the group's wall that I needed to step down and that if someone was interested in taking over for me to PM me; otherwise, if I hadn't heard by the end of the day Dec. 7, I was deleting the group. A couple of days went by with no response, other than a couple of people thanking me for my work and one saying maybe it was best just to let the group die. Then, finally, someone who admins another group that I belong to contacted me and offered to take over. So I was able to step down.

Right now, I think I'm the most angry at the group owner for starting a group that she didn't have any intention of taking care of. Right after she started the group, she let several days go by of people posting whatever they thought they could get by with - most of which got reported to facebook. It was purely awful. I had been there almost from the beginning and had tried to reason with the ones who were making things so unpleasant for everyone, but I didn't have administrative privileges, so the most I could do was report offensive posts to facebook and try to reason with the posters. I guess that's why she made me an admin. But then she just took off and didn't respond when I appealed to her for help. And when she did respond, it was to leave. Right now, she's still on my friend list but I really would like to remove her over this.

[BenzMama]

She needs gone from your friends list & quickly. What a sucky thing to do!

[KeeKee]

I've never heard of a forum where someone could hide from the administrators. That is just not right.

This is old but I wanted to comment

Hope you are happy with your decision to leave, I for one am happy for you.

[Fritzies Mom]

Just saw this bumped up again, and thought I'd pop in with an update.

I did wind up defriending the original group owner who left me high and dry. I no longer trust her at all.

The group is thriving again. I'm still a member but only a member.

And the job offer I mentioned up-thread? I got the job and have already worked a little over a month. It's a part-time tutoring job, and I love it!