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Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Post-Election, Overwhelmed Facebook Users Unfriend, Cut Back

Rachael Garrity posted a farewell message on Facebook. She told her "friends" — that's how she puts it in an email to NPR, in quotes — that she would delete her account. An email from her son followed: Are you OK?

"I am finding Facebook to have a negative impact on my continuing to keep a positive feeling regarding some of the people I have known longest and cherish most," writes Garrity, who has worked in not-for-profit marketing and publishing since the 1970s.

Garrity was one of more than 150 people who have shared their stories with NPR, recapping how they are recalibrating their attitude toward social media after this year's election. Donald Trump's surprise victory ended an emotional roller-coaster of a presidential race, which has left Facebook, Google and Twitter scrambling to rein in a proliferation of fake news and harassing behavior.

"What was really shocking to me was how many people who I consider to be smart were sharing things that were not so smart, definitely obviously fake but matched whatever viewpoint that they pushed or agreed with," says Michael Lowder. He's Garrity's grandson — and he shared her story with NPR because, true to her word, she has quit Facebook, where NPR posted the call-out.

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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ho hum... Get over it; everything will be okay now.

Anonymous said...

Dumped Facebook in 2013. Should have done it sooner.

Life is good.

Anonymous said...

The problem here being, Facebook is characterizing the REAL news sources as fake and doubling down on the neo-communist partisan propaganda mill occupy democrat memes as reality.

Anonymous said...

I have a niece who is a snow flake. She unfriended me because I supported Trump. Hurt her feelings when I told her to get over it and move on.

lmclain said...

A glass of hemlock, my poor dear?

They STILL can't believe that anyone would think differently than them and if anyone DOES think differently, they are OBVIOUSLY not very smart and don't have the superior thinking skills that characterize the liberal mindset.
I love watching them cry and whine and wail.

Anonymous said...

Democrat are the meanest nastiest people ever.