AIBU to want to slap the s**t out of people who announce other people's news on FB?

[IPokeBadgers]

I know, I am sure this has been done to death but I have the rage! Once again I have found out about the birth of a friends baby because of the competitive posting on FB by another friend who obviously needs the dubious honour of being first to post public congratulations on the new mum's timeline.

I mean, who the feck does that? FFS, let the parents make the public announcement about the new arrival....have the basic manners to wait until they have had a chance to draw breath and get around their nearest and dearest before posting it for all and sundry.

Funnily enough, the congratulations message has been removed [I can only assume by the mother of the newly arrived....]

YANBU. Why do people do this? It's just embarrassing for everyone.

Sorry just cheese :(

This is my absolute bugbear and has caused me to step away from someone I used to consider a close friend (an ex-colleague), who announced my sons' birth before anyone else. I wasn't up to confronting her about it as I was very poorly for months after giving birth, and now it's been too long. This selfish, arrogant act has made me see her in a whole new light really.

My younger sister did this when our older sister had her last child. I was really sad for older sister as all our relatives found out before she could send an announcement.

We sprung our wedding on people and someone had a photo on Facebook before we'd even signed the register.

It reflects more on them than it does on us, but it is staggeringly irritating and self involved.

It's not just FB either. DH told his mum and siblings when I was expecting a baby. SIL got straight on the phone to tell their dad, even though she knew he was about to set off to come to our house where DH was looking forward to telling him in person.

That has to be malicious, right? That and other similar stunts designed to piss on our chips re newborn announcements is why I won't engage with her beyond civility.

You want to 'slap the shit out of them'?

And you need to ask if that is U?

I didn't really notice at the time, but thanks to the 'on this day' thing I realised that my best friend congratulated me on Fb before I'd put anything!
It was a bit of an odd time around the birth, the father couldn't be around, luckily my parents were with me and I'd let the other grandparents know. And she did it because she wanted me to know she was proud of all I'd been thru and she was proud to welcome dd. To be honest, there were a lot of things that weren't ideal at the time, and that's just another thing in the pot.

If I ever have any more dc I will make sure I expressly say that I don't want anything put on social media until I have. The congratulations and being told well done means more personally or just the same via text!

I don't see the issue. Loads of people around the world have babies, no big deal.

it wasn't actually his news to share

Why not? Anyone who is a friend or family would want to share news unless you ask them not too. Everyone does this. Everyone.

They don't all put it on fb but when you meet with friends and family you catch up on each others news which might include how mutal friends are doing.

It's normal. I don't get all this angst.

I found out my grandma had died via FB before my dad had a chance to phone me to tell me....

Maybe "slap some sense into them" would have been better than "slap the s**t out of them"....but it got the point across.

Glad I'm not alone in feeling quite ragey at this...some really sad stories here about how people have found out tragic news as well as the celebratory stuff. I dunno, I just don't get how some people have no filter/concept of what is and isn't appropriate when it comes to other people's personal news.

And I sympathise with the poster who wrote this:

Rather worryingly she hasn't made an announcement herself, neither has her partner, and neither of them have been seen on FB since the messages started - it's been about 3 or 4 days now

Totally agree, it is worrying when that happens! Have seen that situation a couple of times now: in one situation the new mother was desperately ill post-birth, in another, the silence went on so long because the couple were coming to terms with finding out their newborn had a genetic condition/disability.

Fairnuff is it also OK to share the death of people even when close relatives haven't had time to be told about it? After all plenty of people die all the time too...

IPoke I fully agree. You might have heard about the 'good news' but know nothing about the more serious issues. Maybe because you aren't actually that close (eg friend), maybe because it's all gone to pot very quickly.
A friend of mine lost her baby 3 days after the birth. Surprisingly, she wasn't on FB to tell everyone about it as soon as her baby got unwell.
If someone had taken to tell the world about the birth, I can't imagine how hard it would have been for her, on the top of seen her baby die, to be met with all the 'congratulations' messages on FB.... :(

This happened when I was expecting dc3. My neice found out and I asked her not to tell everyone. She told her 14 year old sister, who put it on Facebook, and my other neice and her family found out before I could tell them myself.

I was furious, I felt so sad as I'd been looking forward to telling everyone about dc3. He was my last dc and I felt cheated of the pleasure of sharing my good news.

Nothing was ever said to either of my neices as their parents didn't think they had done anything wrong.

Btw fairnuff the difference between telling someone when you see them and FB is time and how many people you are telling.
Telling ONE person isn't the same than telling the 247 friends you have.
Telling ONE person isn't the same than sharing the information with all of that person's friends (which is what you do when you on post on their time line).
And telling one person WHEN you meet them, ie in the afternoon, the day after whatever, isn't the same than putting the same info on FB within an hour and let everyone knows immediately.

Can't you really not see the difference?

I feel sorry for people who are FB desperados. They can't be terribly bright. I have a friend (I am actually quite fond of her) who not only posts about her fabulous nights out with her fabulous friends, but she usually posts a little something about how much she is looking forward to it - a couple of days before and then on the morning of the day itself. She's looking forward to such an event this evening I believe .

But I know she is terribly insecure and just wants to be loved.

YANBU, its bad when it's about pregnancy/birth but it gives me the rage when it's about sad news / a death.

Recently I have seen somebody write on a friend's wall "so sorry, thinking of you and sending you a big hug and lots of love xx"
Clearly something bad has happened, quite possibly a death in the family, but nothing has been written/announced by my friend. So it's basically been announced to everyone she knows that somethings wrong, but whatever it is perhaps she doesn't want everyone to know and she might be getting a lot of 'what's wrong/what's happened' texts. I haven't contacted her, I figure she'll tell people herself if/when she wants to.

I don't understand why it can't be send via messenger or even a phone call if you want to congratulate or tell someone you're thinking of them. It's selfish IMO.

I can see the difference but if you don't want that one person to tell anyone else then say so. Then there will still only be one person that knows. Or don't tell anyone until you are ready to announce it yourself.

In the case of someone dying or other sad news, people should be more sensitive and I think the older generation generally are. It's the younger ones who have this automatic reaction to spread their news on fb without thinking about others who share the same relatives and might not have been told.

I don't think it's malicious or wrong to share good news, it's the way things are these days. News travels so much faster than when we all relied on posting letters. It's almost instant and we have to get used to that.

FWIW I also found out that my mother had died through fb.

flowersandShit it may not be a big deal to you when someone who you don't know or barely know has their baby but to the actual parents and often grandparents and other relatives it is quite a big deal.

It is the sort of thing that lots of people consider to be rude and can cause bad feeling if they do not get a phone call about.

My own mother was incredibly cross with me (not a bad thing because I'm not that keen on her but it was rudeness to allow it to happen) because the birth of her grandchild got announced to all and sundry before anybody had the courtesy to tell her.

Some people may want privacy afterwards due to illness or something else and not want to be bombarded by messages or phone calls from others.

I don't think it's the younger generation who are entirely at fault. My Facebook thunder stealer is a 55 year old woman. It can be someone of any age who just has nothing better going on in their lives.

When I had my DS (1st baby) I had to stay in hospital for a few days. We called the people closest to us to announce the news and texted a few others. I sent DH home to sleep and to send out some pics via email (we don't used FB).

One of my friends then texted me saying congratulations. They'd heard through FB. I apologised for not texting myself but explained I wasn't well after the birth, they were fine but told me the friend who announced my DS's birth had used a photo I didn't even know she had.

Somehow in my DH's sleep deprived state he'd emailed her the photo the midwife had taken of the three of us right after the birth. 12 hours of labour, with just a sheet covering me holding my son covered in goo. She put that picture on FB

Some people use FB instead of their brain and then have the effrontery to be defensive when called out on their stupidity.

I was worried about this happening when DS was born so I changed my FB settings so no one could put anything up on my wall without approval. Yet still one friend who I texted managed to text round all our mutual friends to tell them before I had the chance to (DS had some difficulties so I didn't get round to texting back everyone straight away). No, I didn't specifically ask her not to share the news but still...

This is how my brother found out my dad had died (a week before Christmas). We'd struggled to get hold of him as he lives abroad and my stupid sister put it on FB, knowing full well he hadn't been told. She got no end of grief about it, but has done it again this week after the death of a cousin only 2 bloody months later. What a £$%&

Obvious her need for attention is more important than anyone else's feelings. How awful of us all to want to deprive her of that.

A 'friend' did this to us, when I had pfb dp took a picture of him on my chest immediately after the birth and sent it to our close friends as well as our parents. Friend put it straight on FB. I was when I found out.

Dexter we must have the same idiot friend!