I unfriended one of my oldest friends this month. On Facebook of course. How else would someone unfriend someone? FB is responsible for the term "unfriend" or is it "defriend?" They turned "friend" into a verb. Bright guys over there at Facebook.
In days gone by, you'd just stop hanging out. You would stop calling. You would avoid each other at parties. You'd cross them off your Christmas card list.
But on Facebook, it gets tricky. Since the term "friend" is used loosely to define anyone you are connected to on the site, and membership has certain privileges of access, those friends, genuinely or loosely defined, have a unique ability to know your business, observe with whom you correspond, and if they are so inclined, to take issue with what you do or even interfere.
A reasonable person knows the exposure problem and manages their facetime on Facebook. (This is where teenagers get tripped up. They may think they want to blab hither and yon about something, but they don't consider the reach some things have).
But as I've said, a reasonable person manages the information they share. Won't air any dirty laundry on the web. This is not the place to call out your philandering husband or yak about your argument with your girlfriend, or snark about your wretched colleague at the office or your belligerent student.
The diciest places I'll go are to express a political opinion or comment on a public interest story. I won't even publicly criticize someone else's opinion. I may express a different one, but opinions, as you know, are our entitlement.
But there are people who have more nefarious uses for Facebook.
And unfortunately, this friend of mine turned out to be one of those people.
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