I am mad at Facebook.
This isn't entirely new. Facebook and I have had words before. Usually when I finally figure out where they put something, only to discover that somebody in California has decided to move it. Again.
But this time I'm REALLY mad.
I post daily to our Facebook page for a small nonprofit organization for Seniors (to help our neighbors age at home,) run by volunteers. We use Facebook to do terribly radical things like tell older adults what's happening in their community, share an interesting article about aging, announce an event, and occasionally post something silly enough to make people smile.
Two.
Not two a day.
Not two a week.
TWO A MONTH.
Want to share an article from The New York Times about healthy aging? There's one.
An interesting piece from Next Avenue? There's two.
See you next month, Internet.
And don't think you're going to outsmart Facebook by putting the link in the comments. They thought of that. That counts, too.
Of course, there is a solution.
We can pay Meta.
For about $50 a month, FB Pages can subscribe to a higher-level business plan that includes more link-posting privileges and other features.
That's about $600 a year.
Excuse me?
What small nonprofit has $600 sitting around to give Facebook so its volunteers can share articles with its members?
We have actual things to spend money on. Things involving actual people. We host social gatherings, in person or online. We research and send a monthly newsletter. We help people with their tech problems. We reward our volunteers with lunch at a restaurant once a year. We host holiday parties. We send quarterly gift bags to all Members.
While we're discussing things nobody asked for, apparently Facebook has also been experimenting with automatically sending greetings from some Pages to their new followers.
One Facebook Page I follow, Two Old Broads on a Farm, discovered that cheerful automated messages were going out to every new follower. They didn't write them. They didn't ask Facebook to send them. And, according to their report, they couldn't figure out how to make them stop.
When they asked Facebook for help, they were told it was a "technical glitch" and Facebook was "working on it."
One of the Old Broads reportedly went on a cussing fit. I feel we could be friends.
Meanwhile, Facebook continues adding AI features, subscriptions, verification plans and assorted bells and whistles while those of us actually trying to USE Facebook spend increasing amounts of time figuring out what changed since Tuesday.
Here's the part that really gets my Gramma goat:
We supplied the content.
For years, we all posted the baby pictures. The vacation pictures. The birthdays and anniversaries. We found our high-school friends. We joined neighborhood groups. We created community organizations. We promoted fundraisers. We shared recipes, obituaries, lost dogs and pictures of grandchildren whether anybody asked to see them or not.
We made Facebook someplace people wanted to visit.
And now Facebook would like us to subscribe for the privilege of doing some of the things we used to do for free.
I'm 74 years old. I have reached the stage of life where I am willing to pay for convenience. I am NOT willing to pay $50 a month for aggravation.
So, Meta, here's a suggestion from Gramma:
Stop moving the buttons. Stop making useful things harder to find. Stop adding things we didn't ask for.
And for heaven's sake, give the little nonprofits their links back.
Gramma is mad.
And Gramma knows how to blog.
