The Solution:

Google has an algorithm that can predict your searches like a fucking Pandora channel. There's no reason Facebook shouldn't be able to create one that blocks all content by keyword. It could even filter out all content for a specific profile that they didn't upload themselves. Meaning every meme gets cock-blocked way before it ever reaches your eye-holes.

Now you can keep updated on their actual lives and not whatever shiny new conspiracy theory has caught their attention this week. It's more connection than unfollowing but doesn't require you to "hide all posts by this clearly insane, racist dickhole" every time they find a new one.

This same algorithm could benefit every single personality type out there, even outside of the political subjects. Don't want to see anything related to pumpkin spice? Block it. Minions? Blocked! NRA? Blocked right in the face! Tetris? Oddly enough, unable to be blocked.

The Solution:

This particular problem actually has three solutions, and I wouldn't mind seeing every one of them put into place.

Just because you have these two groups of people in your life, it doesn't mean they have to interact with each other. If they insist on doing that, however, at the very least Facebook can create a special warning that pops up before their message gets posted: "This person is a family member. Please remember that I have to see this person in the real world at some point, whereas you do not. You being a cockhole to them, whether they deserve it or not, makes life difficult for me."

Or for your more vocal friends, a "Rage to Humanspeak" translator could work wonders. It would auto-translate all rage-fueled phrases into a calm, polite, and rational response. Something like "You can't possibly be this fucking stupid" would become "I see the issue from an alternate perspective."

Finally, for the absolute worst-case scenario, the comments would show up as each person getting the final word. Once the "discussion" turned over-the-top, there's no going back with your bile cannons loaded. The last response each person posted would show up as the final response in that thread to the person that posted it. So Uncle Dave and Friend Chet both would walk away thinking they had the final say and the other guy was totally shut down. Winners all around.

Every week there's a new dumbass, image-based meme warning parents about houses giving out drugs disguised as candy for Halloween, saying NASA has "confirmed" 15 days of darkness, or about Satan being spotted shitting from the clouds above an ISIS camp. I made that last one up, but I'm sure someone with decent Photoshop skills can make that happen and get it passed around on Facebook in a matter of minutes.

With one click of a button, you can warn your whole monkeysphere about that horrific, "might be bullshit but better safe than sorry" story. You'd be a bad person if you didn't share it.

The Solution:

Any story purporting to be true can be shared only after the sharer enters a verification code found on the relating Snopes page. Any news story too recent to have a Snopes entry can be posted only by consenting for the post to flash red over and over, prefaced with big bold letters, "THIS POST HAS NOT BEEN VERIFIED AS FACTUALLY ACCURATE AND IS IN ALL LIKELIHOOD A STUPID FUCKING HOAX!" Any attempt to share a well-known hoax will get your account banned for 48 hours and, after three attempts, someone will come to your house and personally punch you in the dick, even if you're sharing it ironically.

You are not currently in a helpful state of mind ... but you also can't say, "I'm blowing you off for a video game. I can barely deal with my own problems right now, and I'm going to lose my shit if you don't leave me alone -- I CAN'T BE THERE FOR YOU ALL THE TIME, FUCK!" We've all been through that situation where in order to be a good friend tomorrow, you have to be a shitty friend tonight. We know it's better in the long run, but you can't really explain that to a person who believes they're lodged deep in the colon of a catASStrophe. Hehehe.

Related to that is the message that shows when you're in the actual act of responding. If I'm typing out a really long response and then realize halfway through that it's stupid, or unhelpful, or stupidly unhelpful, I'm going to delete that shit. From your friend's perspective, when they get your final message of, "K ... brb," it looks like you're the world's slowest typer, or you were just composing a sonnet to confess your love but decided against it at the last second. There's no way to not look stupid in that situation.

The Solution:

Remove the timestamp. Remove the read receipt.

Do I need to know that 3:45 a.m. was the exact minute you were needing me to send you more lives on Candy Crush? I do not. Do you need to know how long it took me to figure out the most polite way to tell you, "No, I'm not going to look at your screenplay"? No one here needs to use Facebook's messenger to establish an alibi. What's the next step in communications, here? The other person seeing letter by letter what I'm typing? Is the next big thing in social media just an empty Google Doc page?

No one needs the pressure of trying to form a response on the spot. This is the exact reason we treat telephone calls like a massive life interruption. It puts you in a position of theoretically having to be available 24/7. If I see my phone blinking at 4 a.m., I have to check it to make sure there isn't some massive work emergency. If it's a drunk message from someone just going through their contacts, shotgunning the same message over and over to see who responds, they know I've seen it. Once they know I'm awake and I've seen their inebriated attempts at human speech, I'm a bitch for not giving them my time. Speaking of time ...