I am on Facebook. I am there in order to participate in some groups, mainly concerned with local affairs, the Metropolitan railway (obviously), the football team I support and so on. This, together with my age, ought to establish me in the minds of the Facebook programmers, as a certain sort of bloke. But it does not.
Facebook have taken to bombarding me (and, no doubt, everyone else) with "suggestions". They have never bothered to ask me what sort of thing I might wish to have suggested to me. This is not the Facebook way. Instead, they either blindly follow what their major advertisers want them to do and then pretend it is a genuine suggestion, or they simply don't care. My reasoning for arriving at this conclusion is that every day I receive a suggestion that I should visit a page or website concerned with Disney.
Anyone who followed my, surely-an-award-must-be-forthcoming-soon, series 101 Things I Refuse To Do Before I Die will recall my excoriation of the works of Disney. I don't care for the stuff. I've made this clear. But will Facebook listen? No, only today they suggested a visit a page called Adults Who Love Disney.
Every time I get one of their ghastly suggestions I am offered the chance to send feedback. There is a list that pops-up if you click the little buttons to the side. It looks like this:
Amongst the choices are Hide Post (with its intriguing byline of "see fewer posts like this" and Hide All from (in this case) Adults who love Disney. But here is the catch. You can only check one option. I would like both to receive fewer posts about Disney (preferably none at all but they don't give me that choice) AND to see no more references to the specific page in question. Not possible. As soon as you make a choice, the window and the suggestion itself vanish. Which would be fine if indeed they showed me fewer sites similar to the one I had expressed a dislike for. But they don't. They go one finding more sites about Disney and eagerly thrusting them in my face, like a cat bringing home bits of dead bird, ignoring the cries of disgust and racing back outside to assassinate more innocent sparrows.
It would nice to get rid of the lot by using the Hide Post option but as this does not work, I have to take my enemy down one at at time by using the Hide All From option. But how many sodding Disney sites are there? Is Facebook going to suggest a different one every day no matter how many times I beg them to hide them? Are there a couple of baffled boffins in their back room, scrutinising their clipboards?
Boffin 1: He's rejected Adult Disney Geeks1
Boffin 2: Damn, I thought we were on to a winner there. What about Disney Nerds?2
Boffin 1: No good, he rejected that two weeks ago.
Boffin 2: Disney Fans with IQs above 80?3 It's a tiny group but it might just work.
Boffin 1: OK, we'll line that up tomorrow and if that fails, let's go with Disney For Snuff-Box Collectors4.
Boffin 2: I didn't know he collected snuff boxes
Boffin 1: I don't suppose he does but what the hell, it's a Disney group and it's got to be relevant. I mean, that fact that he has asked us to hide the 58 previous suggestions just proves what a great fan of Disney he is.
Boffin 2: He sure must like Disney, hell, who doesn't? I can't believe there's any other possibility. Let's suggest again all the one's he's previously rejected, something's bound to stick.
Boffin 1: Great thinking.
Notes:
1. It's genuine (they suggested it)
2. So is this (also suggested)
3. I have a horrible suspicion this might real as well but I haven't bothered to check
4.[ Do you happen to have the address for this one? Asking for a friend: Ed]
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