My New Facebook Policy

In the past week or so, I’ve seen erroneous links on both liberal and conservative friends’ FB pages. Whenever I (or anybody else) tries to show factcheck or snopes, it is usually met with a thanks from the liberal... or being ignored or worse doubling-down by the conservative.  This is probably because the liberal knows I am usually liberal in spirit and am just trying to make a friendly clarification; and the conservative is reacting as if I am his/her enemy.

I’ve become disheartened and discouraged by these events, because I don’t want to be my friend’s enemy. A common response to the snopes correction article is “Snopes is run by liberals.”  Does that mean that liberals are never correct? Every news source out there is going to be viewed as liberal or conservative, and some like Fox”News” and MSNBC make no secret of their slant...  But as a former journalist, I try to view things from a neutral standpoint, and through a lens that I believe a Christ would want me to.

People always assume that “reasonable people think like me” and so that’s why they post stuff. They don’t think that, “Hey, some of my friends are liberal/conservative so they may find this offensive.”  Every now and then, I start feeling like a lone voice with FB church friends.  There is one other church friend who posts with a liberal slant, so I start feeling discouraged and wonder why I bother sometimes.  But every now and then when I feel low, God sends a church friend who thanks me for posting!  So I DO know that there are church people who understand me and I am encouraged again.

I’ve given some thought and have decided that, although I will still post my “liberal” views on my page, I will no longer post factchecks to other peoples’ pages.  It is never appreciated and often resented.  Proverbs 26:4 says, “Don’t answer the foolish arguments of fools, or you will become as foolish as they are.”  And who knows?  Could be I’m the fool anyway.  But for now, I will heed my friend’s advice to  “Keep being you my friend. We need more of you out there.”