(Ab)using Triadic Closure
2021-04-13 19:33:54.167206+02 by Dan Lyke 0 comments
In the middle of last year, there were a few Facebook square dancing groups that were full of calls to "open back up". I started noticing that the more responsible of my friends were taking notice of who was a member of those groups, so I left a bunch of those Facebook groups.
A few years ago, there was an incident of inappropriateness a County Supervisor, who's still in office, explained away with "in retrospect, I should have been wearing pants". Certainly friends of mine are Facebook "friends" with that person, and I don't think any less of them because of that Facebook relationship, but... Now there's a few unfolding sexual assault/rape revelations involving a Mayor, an ex-Mayor, and the various local political figures who've apparently turned blind-eyes to some pretty abhorrent behavior.
And suddenly we're all looking at our Facebook "friends" network more closely. I have a Facebook friend request this morning from someone unknown to me, but with a common friend, so I actually clicked through, and I'm not sure why this person is friending me. But every common friend makes me more likely to spend time evaluating if I want to open up the additional permissions that "friending" (and the overloading of those semantics is its own rant) gives that person.
One of the worst abuses social media, specifically Facebook, has inflicted on the world is the overloading of the semantics of the term "friend". Back in the early days of blogs, "follow" wasn't a bidirectional process, someone either checked your blog (or put the RSS link into their feed-catcher), or didn't.
Even Twitter exposes who I follow to the world.
And as we learn more about the peer pressure and credibility that gives new identies, well... I'm rethinking some of my Facebook friendships. I'm rethinking some of my group memberships. And thinking maybe I need some different tools to interact with people whose character I'm not certain of.