It's Time For Me To Leave Facebook

Here's today's bit of self-pity: I am a seething mess of anger and
irritation, I am cursing people that I really like and respect, I feel as if I am trapped in that episode of Nathan Barley where all the idiots are walking about.

All of this has been caused by my daily trawl through my Facebook feed. Today there have been several posts about that new guy at the DWP. They say that he believes homosexuality is an illness. Only he doesn't. He has links to an organisation that has stated this. He is deliberately vague about his own beliefs on this matter.

Making a meme that has him saying it is not reasoned argument. It is knee-jerk partisan politics. I mean, the guy has a history of voting for Conservative legislation. You can get him on that. 

Then there's the political correctness debate. If I believed Facebook, there is this huge war going on, with people being silenced, other people no-platforming randoms, every word being challenged.

Sure, and on my blog, I have repeated said that I think lap-dancing is brilliant, but no-one ever calls me on it. Even if I cared about being no-platformed, as long as I have my blog, I got my Freedom of Speech. 

Then there are the rants about religion. If you begin a status update with 'we need a debate', a rhetorical pontification is not the way to go. Debates start with questions, not a self-righteous list of things the other guy has done wrong. 

Oh, and let's not forget virtue signalling (the reposting of someone else's opinion to show that the poster is a good person). And reposts of mainstream media, or the reiteration of the same fucking set of ideas every time everything comes up... like the right wingers who shout 'antisemitism' at the left-wingers who are shouting 'Zionism' at them.

And then someone posts about their house that they bought - materialism, much? - their wonderful family... I mean, these are people whom I like, and they are just boasting and flapping and chatting and boring the hell out of me.

Hold up... my complaints are...

Facebook is reducing the quality of opinion... it is the place for partisan rhetoric and simplistic statements.

It makes up controversy in the place of meaningful discourse.

I only stay on it to promote my posts on the blog, using what is supposed to be a network for friends into an egotistical display...