Dear Facebook, stop our smug posts – not the drunken ones

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/11/facebook-smug-posts-drunken-chaperone-algorithm

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Christmas is a time of year that really draws attention to the social media facade. We are all responsible for it, of course – the two-foot tree that you decorated with old bits of silver foil, photographed from the floor so it looks like a majestic triumph of glittery yuletide joy; the Christmas pudding, captured in the millisecond it remained aflame and nobody was calling anybody else a “talentless wanker” for messing up the brandy-to-raisin ratio; the friends posed before their work party in elegant dresses, hours before liquidised Pizza Hut fare spilled over their delicate sandals in a flood of tears. We are all guilty of pretending to document our lives honestly on platforms like Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, while actually filtering our photos and carefully constructing statuses that make us sound like mega-nonchalant, incredibly desirable, relentlessly photogenic superhumans. But every so often, someone slips up – with the help of our good friend alcohol, of course.

It’s at times like these that anyone lying in bed with a kingsize packet of Sainsbury’s Own salt and vinegar “maize snacks”, scrolling through this endless array of superhumans gets to have the last laugh. An unflattering, regrettable photo uploaded of you licking your colleague’s face after your fourth glass of wine should do it. Or a mangled status update at 2am that reveals you actually spent most of your “awesome night” leaning against the bar, checking Facebook on your phone and periodically nodding to the music. Perhaps an embarrassingly over-the-top comment on someone else’s post that reveals you to be the hideously inebriated passenger ranting on a night bus, rather than the elegant darling who delicately excused herself before she had one drink too many.

Facebook wants to stop this misuse of its apparently dignified network, which is why it is now developing an algorithm to act as your very own “Facebook chaperone”. This system will detect your levels of uninhibited idiocy through certain words and behaviours, and then come up with some sort of warning message, along the lines of, “Are you sure you want your boss and mum to see this?”, before you post. It will guide you through the social media experience smoothly, making sure you don’t shatter the illusion you’ve so carefully created.

But where exactly is the fun in this? Everyone knows that the only genuinely readable parts of Facebook are the inappropriate status changes, the poor judgment played out in cyberspace. Publicised over-shares in front of hundreds of your friends provide a service. They make everybody feel less alone, and remind us all that no one has the life they say they do online. Without them, all we’re left with is a chronic sense of FOMO (fear of missing out).

When the mask slips, we get to see social media for what it really is, and what it really isn’t. It isn’t, for instance, an accurate glimpse into someone else’s world. You might know that, logically, but it’s hard to believe it when confronted with a continually refreshing barrage of happiness and light from every angle. Someone got engaged to the best boyfriend in the world; someone else has the best kids in the world; someone took the best dog in the world out for a walk; someone’s best ever family is taking them on the best ever holiday in the best ever country in the universe.

Without the inadvisable slip-ups, all we’d have is that obnoxious, self-celebratory optimism, again and again for all eternity – which is why I have to take a firm moral stance against the development of any sort of algorithm that will attempt to prevent people from making these sorts of errors.

There are things Facebook should lean over and tap on your shoulder about, but they’re not the drunken indelicacies. They’re the inspirational quotes written across a sunset scene, urging everyone to “find the very core of your self today”. They’re the weekly updates of how much your mate’s baby weighs, according to the visiting midwife. They’re the long paragraphs about happy anniversaries, accompanied by heavily Photoshopped pictures of two compulsively grinning people, documented through the years. And they’re certainly the “wonderful 2014” announcements, rounding up all your achievements and presenting them to your followers with all the glee and certainty of a cat dragging in a headless mouse. “2014 – what can I say? You’ve been good to me. First two novels published, an engagement at the Eiffel Tower and the completion of my PhD would have been enough. Winning the lottery was really the icing on the cake. Roll on 2015!” That one would certainly warrant a firm shoulder tap from the overbearing smugness algorithm.

Because man can’t live off Unbaby Me alone (the app that turns baby pics into pictures of cats and bacon), I suggest Facebook concentrates on warning its users about unmitigated life boasts, rather than a bit of drunken revelry. Because what would really make 2015 my year to top all years is the deconstruction of the social media myth. Then maybe I could eat my maize snacks in peace, untethered by the gnawing fear that all of my ex-boyfriends are having the time of their lives while looking mysteriously 10 times more handsome than when they were dating me. Facebook, for the sake of us all, please: get your priorities right. My wellbeing depends on it.