Culling The Herd

Once every few months I find it absolutely necessary to cull the herd on social media.

Typically this takes the form of unfollowing some people. I don’t unfriend or block them unless they become abusive. I just unfollow them. In the majority of cases, I get the feeling they either unfollowed me long ago or merely ignore anything I have to say.

Unfollowing them is not censorship. They have their right to freedom of speech. I have the right to not listen to them. Just because someone says things we don’t like does not mean they should be silenced completely. I use my freedom of speech to counter and oppose them at first. When that doesn’t work, then I move on to unfollowing, from there to unfriending and from there to blocking, depending on how aggressive and abusive they may become.

I do have hope they still see what I post. Sound hypocritical? Maybe. I just find little or no value, even great harm in their positions.

Most commonly the people I take such actions on are one trick ponies. They obsess over a single subject, such as anti-vaxxers. While I will agree more independent research should be done with vaccines, their stance is harmful, dangerous, scorched earth, avoid all vaccines. If I encourage them to look up the effects, mortality and morbidity rates of common illnesses for which we are vaccinated, they refuse. If I give them the information directly, they accuse me of being paid by pharmaceutical companies. They will make such claims that nobody ever died from measles and polio just went away on…