Spartacus Wants to Know – Photo: L. Weikel

Why?

Ah yes. There’s a question. You’re probably puzzling in your brain to which of the myriad unfathomable situations we’re being faced with day after day, week after week this cataclysmic year of 2020 I could possibly be directing this plaintive bleat. You’ll probably never guess; so I’ll just lay it out there: Why has Facebook decided to change – in the middle of a damn pandemic and everything else – the format we’re all comfortable with looking at and navigating? WHY????

I know; I ask myself the same thing. Really, Lisa? Quite frankly, it annoys me that it annoys me. I’m chagrined by my disturbance. I want to punch myself in the arm, give myself the silent treatment, and perhaps even put myself in a time out for giving a crap about stupid Facebook.

First Offense

It was earlier this week that FB seemed to randomly change up my account to inflict the new layout on me. I was immediately off-put and found the tab where I could switch back to “Classic” FB. (They really should take a lesson from Coca Cola). The reason why I was so quickly turned off by the new format? It would not let me copy and paste the link to that evening’s 1111 Devotion post in my status. I tried every which way that I could think of – even trying to post it first on one of my other pages (Owl Medicine and Owl Medicine Shamanic Healing). Nope.

So before I managed to track down the “return to Classic” link, I painstakingly hand typed in the whole long link address to my blog. And now, four or so days later (and notably, before September, when they said the switch would be made unilaterally and permanently for everyone), I’ve apparently been involuntarily switched to the new format – again.

It’s the Little Things

Only this time I can’t find the “return to Classic” toggle and I’m incensed. First of all, it’s not September yet! Second of all, it only reinforces my self-loathing that I’ve come to appreciate FB as a means of not only hopefully getting my posts read by more people but also staying in touch with friends and family even if tangentially and playfully during these unprecedented times of isolation.

We all know it: it’s the little things. And when so many monumental crowbars are being thrown at us right and left, day after day, would it kill FB to refrain from bonking us over the head with another one?

I guess it would. And I have to wonder: what changes have been made that we can’t see?

I’d like to think that Zuck is implementing these changes to minimize abuses and clamp down on trolling and the spreading of misinformation and disinformation. I’m sure FB is concerned about the profound implications for the coming election.

Yep. I’d like to think that. (Dream on…)

It’s incumbent upon us to remain vigilant. On so many fronts. Thanks for bearing witness to this rant. This is probably just a case of me crankily complaining that someone moved my cheese and whining, “Why?” I don’t want to resist change – if it’s good change.

(T-455)