Facebook used to be for students, now it’s a breeding ground for middle-aged racists

Universally, men are bad at social media, especially Facebook. They write statuses about footballers with names like remote islands, and they over saturate their photos in order to give some sort of definition to their non-existent abs.

This is why I try and stay off Facebook. I have 5,000 friends (of which I know, irl, maybe eight of them), and dear God I have some of the worst dickheads in the entire world on my friends list. Scrolling my Facebook feed I’ll be confronted by a Lanzarote photo album, second pregnancy announcement, a racist joke about someone who works in a corner shop, a “rule” for how women should live their lives, a grainy meme, football banter, more football banter, another pregnancy announcement, and a straight-up racist status.

Facebook was originally made just for university students, but now it’s the home of choice for racist middle-aged dads. While Twitter is home to the social justice warriors (arguably to too great an extent), Facebook is a wasteland home to everyone who only bothered to look at the pics during the Free The Nipple movement. Given how bad things have got, maybe 2016 should be when we call time on Facebook altogether.

Facebook’s status as the true home of awful opinions became apparent after the UK government decided to bomb Syria. Opinions on my newsfeed ranged from “blow the fuckers up” to “put the British public first”. I was seething.

Among this sea of shite, I noticed one guy’s status in particular. Obviously not an avid follower of politics but a keen ruler of women’s sexuality, he had taken the time out from his avid wanking-in-the-downstairs-bathroom-of-his-mother’s-house-and-eating-Doritos schedule to type “can’t stick females that post sexual pics or talk sexually to get attention from others! #DontLowerYourself”.

Statuses like this on my timeline, mainly from middle-aged men, are all too familiar. But why is Facebook the racist and sexist asshole social media outlet of choice? Is there a bizarre pride in having their full name and mug shot proudly displayed next to their abhorrent views?

Maybe it’s because it’s so easy to use, especially compared to Twitter. A 140-character limit makes it tricky for these hate-filled men to purge themselves of all their garbage. Or maybe it’s just a numbers game. After all, Facebook has the highest amount of users which probably means it’s more likely I’ll see a wider range of people and opinions on my timeline.

The most convincing reason why Facebook is becoming an ever-increasing nightmare of intolerable views though is that Twitter is so open in comparison. It’s much easier to control your privacy settings on Facebook. You’re more likely to be friends with likeminded people, and therefore your dickhead statuses won’t be judged by the general (and mostly sane) public. Look, I even did a sophisticated Twitter poll about it and the results are clear, it’s not just my newsfeed:

Either way, men won’t stop being racist, homophobic, transphobic, sexist pieces of shit online. Facebook is bad. Men on Facebook are bad. We should ban anyone over 26 from having a Facebook account or make them take a general knowledge quiz before they’re granted access to social media. If this fails, maybe bomb all men? There might be several million men on Facebook and only a handful have bad opinions, but if we bomb them all it’s better safe than sorry, right lads?