Current Events > I'm heavily considering blocking a former coworker on Facebook.

(+) Yeah! (+)

tl;dr: Any time he jumps into a conversation that pertains to politics, he posts false information and then acts condescending as if his comments "went over your head" when you call him out on it.

I'm starting to feel like it's just not worth trying to have conversations with him any more at all. I have a thread going about John Eastman's disbarment trial. One of my aunts asked if there was a way for her to watch it so I gave her the zoom link.

The former coworker jumped into the conversation with his usual idiocy and condescending tone and I'm pretty much tired of it.

He was trying to say that John Eastman's disbarment hearing is just a distraction and that he'll "just have to pay a fine." I brought up the fact that Rudy Giuliani has already has his law licenses in NY and Washington, DC suspended as a result of his disciplinary hearing. I also mentioned the fact that Jenna Ellis was allowed to keep her law license in Colorado because she agreed to sign a statement acknowledging that she lied.

He said Rudy Giuliani hasn't appeared in a court of law since 1992, and it isn't clear what a suspension does since you can still appear "pro hac vice."

Anyone who has been paying attention to the events surrounding the 2020 election would know that the first part of that statement is bullshit, plain and simple.

• Rudy Giuliani filed frivolous election fraud lawsuits in 2020, and thus appeared in a court of law related to those lawsuits.
• Rudy Giuliani is being sued for defamation by multiple entities, including the Georgia election workers he was accusing of a crime with no evidence whatsoever to confirm what he was saying.

I wasn't sure what pro hac vice meant, so I looked it up. From what I've read, it basically refers to an attorney practicing law in a state where he or she isn't licensed. However, in both NY and Washington, DC, an attorney cannot appear pro hac vice if he or she has been suspended or disbarred in any other jurisdiction. So obviously, since Rudy Giuliani's law licenses have been suspended, he wouldn't be able to appear pro hac vice.

When I brought that up, he brought up multiple other states. I started looking those states up and after going through 5 of them I decided to stop. They all had the same rules as it pertains to a suspended/disbarred individual. You basically have to be in good standing in the states where you are licensed in order to appear pro hac vice.

When I asked him to actually verify what he's saying by looking up the information instead of being condescending and just saying blatantly false things, he just said "I don't got time to look up everything."

I'm most likely going to block him. I've really tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, but this shit is annoying. We're having an actual conversation in the thread and all this dude is doing is wasting time.

/rant

I say block them if its causing you distress, but I really have no strong feelings about this, it seems absurd to me

Block him for your own sake. People like that can never be trusted.

It's a former co-worker. I don't see why you would give a shit, just block and move on.

Worst case scenario is he brags about how triggered he made you and youll never see it.

Meh people take social media way too seriously.

CableZL posted...

He said Rudy Giuliani hasn't appeared in a court of law since 1992

If he is arguing that Rudy Giuliani has argued a case in front of a judge in more than 3 decades, ask him to explain this.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/17/politics/trump-giuliani-election-lawsuit/index.html

Rudy Giuliani, representing President Donald Trumps campaign, tried to deliver a sweeping broadside against mail-in voting Tuesday in a federal courtroom, only to face questions from a judge who suggested that the Presidents campaign shouldnt even be in court.

If the response is anything other than "oh shit, my bad," block him.

SHRlKE posted...

Meh people take social media way too seriously.

Eh, it's not so much social media itself. I typically try to avoid blocking friends/coworkers/acquaintances over disagreements. However, there are times where I've just cut people out of my life in general and blocked them on social media as a part of it. Probably gonna take that step here because I haven't had an actual productive conversation with the dude since I quit the job where I worked with him.

If you have to ask "should I block someone?" The answer is almost always "yes."

darkace77450 posted...

If the response is anything other than "oh s***, my bad," block him.

Yeah, just did it.

I gave him multiple examples of Giuliani's frivolous lawsuits and the defamation suits where he's currently a defendant and has been in a court of law as a result.

Like... I'm perfectly OK with people not knowing things. Nobody knows everything. Everybody is wrong sometimes. But spending time researching basic stuff just to bring him back up to ground level when we're in the middle of discussing things in the thread is annoying as hell.

He hasn't shown any signs that he's willing to actually discuss things honestly, so I'm done. I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, but even after showing him that he's wrong, he's still trying to be condescending as if he's somehow contributing to the conversation and trying to bring everyone else up to speed.

Compsognathus posted...

If you have to ask "should I block someone?" The answer is almost always "yes."

Yeah that's fair, lol.

CableZL posted...

Eh, it's not so much social media itself. I typically try to avoid blocking friends/coworkers/acquaintances over disagreements. However, there are times where I've just cut people out of my life in general and blocked them on social media as a part of it. Probably gonna take that step here because I haven't had an actual productive conversation with the dude since I quit the job where I worked with him.

Thats fair enough. The fact its annoyed you to the point you are spending (guessing here) energy debating it you shouldnt get involved in the conversations in the first place.

Compsognathus posted...

If you have to ask "should I block someone?" The answer is almost always "yes."

its not always that simple, theres certain people you just cant block

I would recommend blocking them, but I would also recommend evaluating why you were wasting your time arguing politics with a former coworker on Facebook in the first place. Even if you were extremely bored and trapped at work during some sort of power outage with nothing but your phone, there are far better uses of your time.

Do yourself a favor and just delete Facebook

SHRlKE posted...

Thats fair enough. The fact its annoyed you to the point you are spending (guessing here) energy debating it you shouldnt get involved in the conversations in the first place.

Yeah, that's a good point. I really tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, but it's just not worth allowing him to drag the conversation down to basic addition and subtraction when we're discussing the nuances of witness testimony, John Eastman's actions in regard to his fake electors plot, etc.

No_U_L7 posted...

Do yourself a favor and just delete Facebook

The only reason I still have Facebook right now is because that's how I communicate with the vast majority of my dad's side of the family. My parents split when I was about 1 year old. My mom ended up moving from Pensacola, FL to Austin, TX to get away from him. There are a lot of people on my dad's side of the family who haven't seen me in decades because of that.

Prior to the pandemic, I was taking trips to Georgia, Alabama, and Florida to reconnect with family and stuff... But now we mostly communicate via Facebook.

I've made people unfriend me by being an unapologetic liberal. I would rather them do it than me. Yes I know a cheap sense of "victory". I installed an unfriend plugin on my browser. Last person to unfriend me was a high school acquaintance, never even spoke to her. I posted a picture of the blue line flag with the blue line peeled back revealing a swastika. Three hours later I got a notification of deletion lol. I have found there is no point in being civil or trying to rationalise or have mature discussions with MAGAt's. They are completely unwilling and unable to see the truth in anything that doesn't fit their narrow worldview. Of course this is a personal choice for everyone, If you don't mind having trump supporting friends more power to you. I however do not. Non trump supporting conservatives I can tolerate even though I disagree. MAGAt's I refuse to tolerate any longer, it does not make one close minded.

R1masher posted...

its not always that simple, theres certain people you just cant block

Most social media at this point gives you methods of blocking that basically make you invisible to someone without necessarily "unfriending" that person. So you can effectively block your racist aunt without causing family drama.

And even assuming that there are unblockable people in your life, which I don't necessarily agree with, a former co-worker definitely shouldn't be on that list.

Compsognathus posted...

Most social media at this point gives you methods of blocking that basically make you invisible to someone without necessarily "unfriending" that person. So you can effectively block your racist aunt without causing family drama.

And even assuming that there are unblockable people in your life, which I don't necessarily agree with, a former co-worker definitely shouldn't be on that list.

Yeah, he's definitely not on that list. I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, but it's just not worth allowing him to continue to drag down every political conversation he tries to participate in.

Compsognathus posted...

Most social media at this point gives you methods of blocking that basically make you invisible to someone without necessarily "unfriending" that person. So you can effectively block your racist aunt without causing family drama.

And even assuming that there are unblockable people in your life, which I don't necessarily agree with, a former co-worker definitely shouldn't be on that list.

On facebook its called "unfollow". It no longer shows you anything from that person but they remain "friends".

TonyKojima posted...

I've made people unfriend me by being an unapologetic liberal. I would rather them do it than me. Yes I know a cheap sense of "victory". I installed an unfriend plugin on my browser. Last person to unfriend me was a high school acquaintance, never even spoke to her. I posted a picture of the blue line flag with the blue line peeled back revealing a swastika. Three hours later I got a notification of deletion lol. I have found there is no point in being civil or trying to rationalise or have mature discussions with MAGAt's. They are completely unwilling and unable to see the truth in anything that doesn't fit their narrow worldview. Of course this is a personal choice for everyone, If you don't mind having trump supporting friends more power to you. I however do not. Non trump supporting conservatives I can tolerate even though I disagree. MAGAt's I refuse to tolerate any longer, it does not make one close minded.

And yeah, this is one of the problems I think a lot of people are facing. I'm fortunate that, in this case, it's just a former co-worker. However, I've also had to cut off a teacher that I looked up to for most of my life. He started posting thinly-veiled racist shit after Trump became president. The final straw for me when it came to him was him cheering on the capitol riot as it was happening.

CableZL posted...

And yeah, this is one of the problems I think a lot of people are facing. I'm fortunate that, in this case, it's just a former co-worker. However, I've also had to cut off a teacher that I looked up to for most of my life. He started posting thinly-veiled racist shit after Trump became president. The final straw for me when it came to him was him cheering on the capitol riot as it was happening.

Yup the aftermath of the 2016 election was a real eye opener just to how bigoted and racist the people in my graduating class were. Granted most I never even spoke but a few I did. Then after the 2020 election is when I decided I was done with most of these people and wanted nothing to do with them. So afet being relatively quite on facebook for years I began being very opinionated and pushed back to their misinformation posts. At first I was civil and polite but after the Jan 6th insurrection that went out the window. Though it has been fascinating to see those who were wealthy and privileged back then became rabid trump supporters. I think only once or twice I was legit surprised that person was a trumper. The rest however either don't mention it or hate trump.

TonyKojima posted...

Yup the aftermath of the 2016 election was a real eye opener just to how bigoted and racist the people in my graduating class were. Granted most I never even spoke but a few I did. Then after the 2020 election is when I decided I was done with most of these people and wanted nothing to do with them. So afet being relatively quite on facebook for years I began being very opinionated and pushed back to their misinformation posts. At first I was civil and polite but after the Jan 6th insurrection that went out the window. Though it has been fascinating to see those who were wealthy and privileged back then became rabid trump supporters. I think only once or twice I was legit surprised that person was a trumper. The rest however either don't mention it or hate trump.

Yeah, that just about tracks for me as well. I used to spend a lot of time trying to correct misinformation. These days I don't have much patience for it at all. If they're a loose acquaintance or even a family member that I haven't ever spoken to outside of social media, then I don't mind cutting them off.

If I considered them a friend, or I used to work pretty closely with them, I'll typically try to give them the benefit of the doubt for a while. I still don't have much patience for it, though, and I'm much quicker to just cut off contact.

CableZL posted...

He said Rudy Giuliani hasn't appeared in a court of law since 1992

The dude literally went to court on Trump's behalf to overturn the election. In fact, one of those times was him suggesting they just throw out all the votes in PA and give the state to Trump over 500ish allegedly problematic votes and name dropping Santa Claus in another.

This ex-coworker is just on a mission to spread lies and disinformation. You have no obligation to platform them in that. I would have stopped allowing it long ago.

s0nicfan posted...

I would recommend blocking them, but I would also recommend evaluating why you were wasting your time arguing politics with a former coworker on Facebook in the first place. Even if you were extremely bored and trapped at work during some sort of power outage with nothing but your phone, there are far better uses of your time.

Per TC's story, this person was inserting themselves into conversations that didn't involve them in order to lie and spread disinformation. It would be one thing if TC were responding to this person's posts and that led to arguments, however it's another when you're having a conversation with your aunt and some uninvited person comes in all "LOL RUDY HASN'T EVEN BEEN IN COURT SINCE THE 90's!"

It's happened to me where I'd be having a conversation with someone else and then some random person I've never even heard of comes into the convo assailing me with the most shit-for-brains right-wing propaganda imaginable.

I had to unfollow like 8 people back in 2018-2020

CableZL posted...

Yeah, that just about tracks for me as well. I used to spend a lot of time trying to correct misinformation. These days I don't have much patience for it at all. If they're a loose acquaintance or even a family member that I haven't ever spoken to outside of social media, then I don't mind cutting them off.

If I considered them a friend, or I used to work pretty closely with them, I'll typically try to give them the benefit of the doubt for a while. I still don't have much patience for it, though, and I'm much quicker to just cut off contact.

One of my good friends has fallen down the rabbit hole :(
It all began with Gina Carano being fired and then from there he discovered Ben Shapiro then it was over. We speak occasionally now.

SHRlKE posted...

Meh people take social media way too seriously.

Social media did help expose a former coworker's true nature in whole. She acted like she was my friend but I found out she's crazy.

I remember leaving a job back in the day and I ended up blocking almost everyone the moment I left. Sorry just because I'm nice on the job doesn't mean I like you

Axiom posted...

I remember leaving a job back in the day and I ended up blocking almost everyone the moment I left. Sorry just because I'm nice on the job doesn't mean I like you

I'm not big on getting personal with coworkers either. They're not really your friends but they know how to pretend.

There are some diamonds in the mud, however.