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Comment by gorgoiler | Hacker News Reader

Relatedly, uBlock Origin’s picker has really improved my quality of life on Facebook.

I love Facebook, it’s my only remaining connection to some people, and it’s revived many friendships I thought I’d lost.

However, as one gets on in life, People You May Know can be extremely emotionally impactful. It is a little part of the web UI that brings back the dead, ex partners I still miss, exes who have moved on, and toxic people I had tried to move on from.

It’s really put me through the wringer and being able to block that part of the UI forever is something I’m very glad Facebook, in the role I have gladly given it as being an overseer of my (mostly good) emotions, does not and shouldn’t ever stop me from doing. I hope they realize this.

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Your last paragraph is really difficult to parse. I originally thought you liked the feature because it put you through the emotional wringer (in terms of making you work through certain negative emotions), and that it wasn't coddling you.

Thanks for the feedback. I find writing to be very difficult. It’s really helpful to me when people take the time to point out where I’m not clear, especially when it’s constructive feedback, like yours is.

For what it's worth, I thought your meaning was clear. Your third paragraph opens with "however," indicating a contrast to the previous one (in which your love for FB is stated). So I interpreted "emotionally impactful" in a negative rather than positive sense. As a result I didn't have any issues with your last paragraph.

I very much agree with your point of view, and am glad they did (eventually) provide a way to disable the time-hop functionality.

I went through a couple of bad patches and actually don't want to be reminded about that disastrous holiday to vegas I went on with a kinda-sorta-not-really partner, nor do I need reminding of the friendship with a guy who was later convicted of some pretty unpleasant things that none of us (his family included) saw coming.

> I love Facebook

Interesting, what do you think about the backlash against facebook? I guess there could be arguments in favor of facebook, after all.

Facebook is my only real connection to interact with people. I work remote and spend all of my free time with my family but I don't have any real-life friends. So facebook fills a little bit of a void where I can feel like I have a few "friends". I do understand some of the backlash of them sucking up all the world's data and selling it to advertisers.

I love what Facebook brings to my life and relationships, in a purely practical way.

That positive sense of connection with the world far outweighs what (with respect) The Internet suggests I shouldn’t like about the business or their products.

With a billion users, it's obvious that people find Facebook valuable.

I love that feature. Use it for all the different things that I don't like to see, that distract me etc. Some of the "annoyances" filters are great too to remove most of those cookie notices and other stuff. They're not on by default but easy to switch on in the uBlock origin settings.

I use a Firefox extension called "F.B. Purity". It gives you a lot of control over what you see on Facebook. You can hide "People You May Know", among many other things. https://www.fbpurity.com/

I'm glad to read your comment. I I still remember the good times of Facebook, it was a great to see this little website with a lot people connecting with friends and also total strangers, that being said People You May Know is indeed bad because this feature never really took care of your history with the suggested accounts.

Yeah, that one is bad. If someone was recently tagged as your partner and now is not tagged as your friend, you probably don’t want them suggested as an exciting new person you might add.

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