Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/07/16/unfriend-assholes.html
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Don’t forget his Comet Pizza and Civil War II incitement.
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an app that tells you which of your friends follows Alex Jones’s Infowars and auto-unfriends them
If it’s a Facebook app made by a mere human resource/consumer rather than a slow AI then it’ll be banned very quickly by FB under its app store TOS. But if it causes more embarrassment and bad PR for FB continuing to allow this hate-oil salesman in its newsfeed as “analysis” it’s worth a try.
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Why don’t we send Jones a nice years worth of baconators gift certificates and the problem may self correct?
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just want to point out that while he is just a moronic commentator about sandy hook, our actual Congress, you know the lawmakers with all the real power, did NOTHING, changed ZERO laws about anything, guns or otherwise to prevent the next murder of TWENTY 6-year-old children
sadly these battles against commentators never work, remember trying to make Sean Hannity follow through on his promise to get waterboarded for charity? 3200+ days now, nada
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Fuck elegance. Harass the fuck out of this fucking fuckface at every fucking opportunity. Fuck him.
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Ahem. And the rest of the article:
What’s stopping this app from being a reality today? Nothing, except Facebook, [and] its app guidelines… A spokesperson for Facebook told me the original Whopper Sacrifice App violated its platform policies, specifically section 4.4, by “not respecting the limits [it’s] placed on [its] functionality.” This section says “don’t show people who unfriended them” as an example of the app’s violation of the policy.
Personally, I don’t have any friends. Facebook or actual, that would “like” InfoWars. If I did, I would un-friend them for realz, no burger bribe required.
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Not a bad idea. But I will not join Facebook to participate.
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I haven’t been back to facebook in a long time, not sure I ever will. Deeply regret having joined when I was in school and it was a college network, though I did make some friends whom I’ve basically withdrawn from since mainly because they seem to think any of 20 or so chat/video programs and email are too hard to use. Oh well… I’m just not willing to go back. That said, when I was on there oh how I would have loved this. Unfriend, block, send them an automated message as to why. I’d like it to be customizable though, like to allow you to specify multiple people and unfriend and block anyone who follows them. Yes it’s a bubble, that’s normal actually. We don’t usually invite the whole city over to a party, no, you invite your friends whom you already get along with. That’s human nature. If I want to hang out with a bunch of nazis I can seek them out, plus I like the nice clear way to weed out people I don’t want around me anyway.
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We’d all be better off with fewer meaningless online friendships, and the imaginary obligations attached.
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I don’t think the bit about Burger King is necessary for explaining the idea of automatically unfriending people who follow InfoWars. Why does every fucking thing have to be a de facto advertisement these days?
Going after Alex Jones is great, but he is just a symptom of the problem, and so is giving Burger King such a prominent place in this supposedly “progressive” (but actually quite capitalist-consumerist-conformist) plan.
Isn’t it obvious that in order for this plan to work, people still have to be shackled to Facebook, which is part of what’s wrong here?
Maybe instead of using Facebook as means to express discontent that Facebook won’t ban InfoWars, people should stop using Facebook. Just a thought.
Like I said, InfoWars is just a symptom—the problem is much deeper. If Jones just disappears one day, there will be a hundred Jones disciples ready to start their own InfoWars-type endeavors.
Why not make an app that automatically defriends anybody who follows Trump too? Why is the focus just on shaming people who follow Jones, rather than shaming all people who support the kleptocrats?
If you really want to solve the problem, you need to think bigger than using Zuckerberg’s surveillance platform to inform people who like Alex Jones that you don’t like him.
But if you’re not actually concerned about the real problem, but rather more interested in getting clicks with your clickbait, you would maybe write an article about a plan that is explicitly anti-Alex Jones but implicitly pro-Mark Zuckerberg, with a headline along the lines of “How Burger King Can Fight InfoWars on Facebook.”
Me, I’m making an app that automatically defriends anybody I’m friends with on Facebook who uses Facebook.
ETA:
“Reward yourself for standing up to an anti-union bigot by giving an anti-union fast food corporate monstrosity your money!” Fuck you, Motherboard—how much is BK giving you?
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Using peer pressure and collaborative “likes” to punish bad behaviour/
What could possibly go wrong?
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Hmm I was curious - how many friends do I have that have liked Infowars? The answer surprised me.
One is one of the few FB friends I have who is someone I don’t really know. She is a former Suicide Girl who is one of the few people that may like Boba Fett more than me. But she posts UFO stuff all the time, sooooo, yeah.
The other is a HS friend who was a Fire Fighter, now an EMT. He doesn’t usually spout crazy stuff, so maybe its for the LOLs… or who knows.
Still 2 out of 324 isn’t bad.
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It would be heretical not to follow our state religion: bits of green paper.
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I’ve got exactly one friend who “likes” Alex Jones. I know he doesn’t like Alex Jones, he’s just following him, either to keep an eye on him or just for grins. I’ve got a number of friends who “like” people they vehemently disagree on to keep an eye on them.
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Facebook really needs to add an “ironically likes” badge to its options.
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You can follow without liking.
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I gleefully await A Jones being placed firmly in the dust bin of history.
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Even though Alex will be long gone his emergency survival foods will have only seen a small fraction of their shelf life go by.
Something comforting in that…or not. I don’t really know how I feel anymore.
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