I’ve been on Facebook since it opened to anyone in September 2006. Before that it was limited to certain universities. Incredibly.  I’ve been on the platform for almost twenty years. Throughout that time I’ve averaged about a thousand “friends.” There’s been churn, of course: people drop off, new ones entered. I had one rule I tried to stick to: I only accepted invites from people I actually knew and had interacted with, past or present.

I post often. Facebook gives me an easy way to share things with people I know, and in particular to make the kinds of comments I hope are insightful or, better yet, funny. I wasn’t especially worried about my privacy, though I did want some control over who saw my posts.

I would also comment on friends’ posts, knowing full well that my comments were visible to their friends too. But I had no way of knowing who those friends were unless someone made their friends list public. That made me rethinking how I use Facebook

Recently, I’ve been dealing with a problem. Someone I’ve known for more than thirty years has been posting vicious attacks on Israel and in some cases, comments that I read as antisemitic. I tried to engage with him privately and thought I’d gotten through. Then it started again, more blatant. I commented publicly, and his response was even sharper.

To be clear: I don’t think criticizing the Israeli government is antisemitic. I do it all the time myself. But some of what he wrote was, in my view, antisemitic. He showed no understanding of, or empathy for, what Israelis have experienced at the hands of terrorists. He seemed to question whether Jews should even have a homeland.

As I kept commenting, I started getting replies from his friends, people I don’t know. Some of what they wrote was disturbing.

Two things became clear. First, I no longer wanted to be Facebook friends with this person. His posts, and the pile-on from his network, were hurtful, and there’s no reason to keep exposing myself to them, or to keep putting my own thoughts in front of strangers. We are living in a dangerous time, full of anger and violence.

Second, I now understand more clearly how Facebook is set up. The whole apparatus is designed to generate outrage, because outrage generates engagement, which generates views, which generates revenue.

I’ll keep posting, and I hope my friends keep commenting. But I’ll be much more careful about what I say on other people’s posts. I’ve also been going through my friends list and pruning.

I know that having a feed mostly populated with people who share my views may shield me from understanding what large numbers of others actually think. I’m willing to take that risk. If I want to know what the country is yelling about, I can always open TikTok.