I’d like to see who has hidden my Facebook feed so I can determine whether or not to defriend them. Currently Facebook does not allow you to see who hides your feed (or at least that I am aware of).
This is an error. While Facebook wants to minimize conflict, what they are actually doing is creating dead weight on people’s social networks. When someone hides my feed they have already voted no to conversation.
For me, many of my Facebook friends come to me through social networks or this blog. Their value to me is not their friendship because in reality we don’t know each other. Instead it’s the potential conversation and engagement we can have on Facebook via dynamic threaded conversations.
When someone hides my feed, generally speaking the connection is no longer worthwhile for me. These people should be defriended. I prefer a hyper-engaged Facebook community.
Obviously, there are family members, interesting profiles and real friends who have hidden me that I’ll want to keep. The reasons to keep them range from tagging in family photos to following just because I find them interesting. Determination is on a case by case basis.
But I should have the right to say no to “friends” who don’t want to talk with me. Where’s the quid pro quo in this situation? The only reason I can think of someone who does not know me personally following me while hiding my feed is to spam melater on. Managing an unnecessarily large Facebook community to deal with Facebook spam when these people want me to attend their event or message me? I think not.
Defriending in these cases is just doing what should have been done in the first place. Dear Zuckerberg and co: Give me the choice to say no thank you.