Being ‘told off’ for minor rule infringements on Facebook groups

[justanotherneighinparadise]

AIBU to just roll my eyes and leave the group? Anyone else just cannot be bothered with the wrists slapping that goes on? I know its childish of me. I know if I sign up and agree ‘the rules’ I should respect the people who moderate the group. But man I feel like some of these people just love the power.

It’s like the only power I have is to think ODFOD and flounce 🤣

Caveat is that I don’t have any real Facebook group that I’m wed to. So to flounce makes no difference to my quality of life.

YABU - get over yourself and just follow the bloody rules
YANBU - these people just LOVE the power trip

@Lentil63

I admin some Facebook (political) groups. Facebook are very strict in what they allow. If transgressions (in Facebook’s opinion) occur repeatedly they can and do on occasion shut groups down. That having been said there are different groups, some will allow all sorts, others (which I much prefer) have standards which protect participants. Groups have rules, if you’re not prepared to abide by them then those groups aren’t for you.

I agree. I'm admin of a group and FB have imposed rules that we would never have put in place but if we don't abide by them, they have threatened to close the group and ban admins from FB

We are an all female adult group and love a bit of naughty humour. There is very little we say no to but we have to be much more wary now as FB hold admin responsible for everything members post.

@MadameQuaver

I was once on a large FB group which was a splinter group from a large parenting forum that used to be very popular.

Said FB group had a huge team of admins that were very bolshy and made no secret of the fact that they had another, smaller, private group for admin and for their favoured group members that were in their clique.

However, they tried to make it a rule that no other members could have any private, smaller groups even though they had one themselves! I got added to a small group started by another group member and I think there were about 15 of us on there, and I got deleted and banned from the original group.

It's always one rule for admin and one rule for everyone else on that kind of thing, and admin are almost always keyboard warriors on FB groups!

Oh I had this too, well similar.

Was part of a mums group for babies born at a certain time. After a year or so, I was added to a messenger chat with the admins and 3 or 4 of the other members. They'd basically decided I was 'in' enough with the to join their 'secret' group.

What it was, in reality, was a horrible bitchfest about all of the other members, and when someone who wasn't liked posted this little gang would be behind the scenes absolutely ripping them to pieces and posting comments trying to pick a fight on the group - totally passive aggressively, nothing that could be called out as rude per se, but really quite nasty.

I didn't take long to leave both, I'm still in touch with 2 of the whole group members but that's enough for me.

What is it with these things that make grown women act like mean teenagers?!

It depends I do find it irritating when it happens to me but OTOH when the rules aren't stuck to the group can be flooded with increasingly irrelevant crap so I kind of get it.

I’m not on fb anymore but when I was, I was once banned from a slimming world recipe page because I said all of their recipes were different variations of an omelette

I was suspended fron a Hinch cleaning group when someone posted pics of their new stupendously grey kitchen (walls, units, flooring etc) which everyone raved over - I said with our English weather it would give me the pip and you can't beat a bit of sunshine yellow to lift your spirits. Apparently they didn't approve of my approach to MH and was told I needed to be more empathetic. I'm a bit of a slob really so I left them to it.

When you have a very big group with hundreds of thousands of group members then rules are necessary. If you want to see an example of how unreadable and stupid threads get with no moderation just look at the the comments section of some popular YouTube videos.

I admin a Facebook group and its horrendous.
People don't seem to realise that yes, one small infringement of the rules may look inconsequential, but times that by the many thousand members who then do the same and it becomes irritating to everyone.
What pisses me off is how arsey some people get when their posts removed.
I've had threats to myself and my family, called every name under the sun, had people call me through messenger to swear and call me said names, people write to my day job to try and have me sacked, the list goes on. All because their precious post was deleted....ridiculous

I'm an admin for a couple of FB groups (not by choice particularly, just ended up that way because of good working relationships with some other people involved).

We don't have that many rules (although just laying out "don't be __s to each other and don't spam the place" has ended up breaking down into half a dozen rules over the years, as there's always a few people every year who try to push the rules in a big way, and plenty of people who just ignore them with advertising in the wrong places).

No-one in the admin teams is in it for any power. It's a pretty thankless and boring job - but anyone who's about sorts out any issues, and we have a really lovely team feeling among ourselves - chat a couple of times a week, so it's more of a social thing.

Anyone going into it for power would be put off very fast. It's not like anyone knows who you are, most decisions are completely anonymous to protect the admins, and you have to deal with people being over-dramatic or argumentative every so often. It's not very hard work but it's not exactly superstardom either.

Actually, good point by @baileys6094. We have had threats to the admin team twice now, and I've had dick pics. Most people are just grumpy if they're told not to break the rules again, but some do get quite personal.

And like Baileys says, it's not individuals - it's more that if we allow one person to post an ad for their private business in the main page then every other member will feel they can and then the other stuff that the group involves will be swamped under loads of ads. The rules have to be strict, or it'd all fall apart.

I missed what you did OP .

It depends. I wouldn’t admin my local community groups for all the tea in China - every once in a while there’s an aggressive semi-literate asshole who just will not leave off the covid conspiracy theories/racism/advert for their new business.

But one of the other ones was a fascinating psychological experiment - one admin who thought the sun shone out his backside and was rude and aggressive himself in a way that absolutely wouldn’t be tolerated by anyone else. But people liked and commented because he had this sort of “telling it straight” air. Occasionally he’d go off on middle of the night rants that would vanish by morning but boy were they worth staying up for. Luckily he eventually flounced.

Tut tut, OP. Whinge Wednesday was last week, as you know.

YANBU🤣 I have a Facebook group and my rules are don’t be a dick and don’t advertise, that’s it, I used to admin for a different group but left because she kept going on and on about how being an admin was an amazing thing and people should be so grateful blah blah blah, people love the power🤣

@Nottodayjosephine111

I’m not on fb anymore but when I was, I was once banned from a slimming world recipe page because I said all of their recipes were different variations of an omelette

🤣

Perhaps you should leave Facebook. If what you describe was the worst thing that happens on Facebook, then social media would be a much less toxic place.

I am admin for a large buy and sell group and the fucking DRAMA is too much. Not from the admins but the members. They speak to us like shit if we ask them to just follow the rules (not many rules and all sensible). We’ve recently had to remove someone for breaking the Don’t Be A Dick rules and they made multiple sock puppet accounts demanding we reinstate their ‘friend’ and then they got their partner to threaten us with legal action if we didn’t allow them back on the page. Fucking fuckity off love it’s just a fucking Facebook page.