What happens when you "unfrield" someone? Do they know? Do you have to give a reason? There's someone once did some building work who I accepted as a friend a while ago as I had no reason not to and he seemed decent enough. Turns out he's some sort of rabid faschist! I suppose I could just unfriend him and sod it, but just wondered if there was a protocol?

If you don't want to unfriend him, you can block his posts and block your posts to him.

You can see less from this person on Facebook but still stay friends. Which to me seems like unfriending them without them knowing.

I've done it with a couple of acquaintances who were ok but they are single and just want to post endless selfies as their lives just go round and round in circles.

I've been quietly dropped from people's Facebook account and didn't even notice I wasn't getting updates about their cycle trip to the coffee shop overlooking the ocean again and again. Or posting the practically daily picture of their dog etc.

Also wrt facist meme's there's one fb acquaintance that makes me think, 'anymore Britain First nonsense from you my lad and it's be the unfriend button, ok.'

Just 'Unfollow' if you don't want to offend them and don't mind them seeing your posts. They need never know.

So much easier IRL.

Kill someone and if you change your mind, unkilling is not an option.

I just block people from my feed.

Those with constant cat, dog, food, selfie pics. Religious and political content. Self pity. Self righteous.

Have I left anything out?

So you've pretty much blocked everyone then? 😉

Probably. Except from the missus, the kids and me Mam and Dad

You can set up groups, levels of friends so only some can see your posts. So say you have a group called 'family' then when you post use the 'who can see my posts' selector, top right of the post I think. Then only family will see you photos of your great uncle's bum boil. You can set up however many groups that you like.
So so can post to Close Friends and just make sure the assorted fascists and dingbats are not allocated to that group

Just unfriend him, no need to give a reason, & if you're only casual acquaintances he won't even notice probably.

I have a solution. Never get Facebook. That is what I did. Family members and friends have it and I find it to be a time waster of a site. It has caused a lot of needless drama and misunderstandings with many people I know. It is information without context.

I read an article once talking about people with strong views and the obvious approach is to block it, this article was suggesting that there can be merit in keeping them as friends, maybe even commenting to point out a different view.

To be fair I often just unfollow posts. I reported a post once of a friend's husband. It was one of those please like this photo of a criminal beaten black and blue at prison, horribly tortured. Facebook deemed it acceptable. I unfriended him. What FB deems acceptable is something I really don't get.

I have a rarely used FB account I originally started to keep an eye on what the sprogs & their entourage were up to.

I keep it because of various far-flung relatives who are apparently incapable of using email or telephones, but who are capable of using FB for important family updates/contacting me.

I do find it ironically amusing when people I haven't seen or heard of in ~ 30 years send me friend requests...

I trimmed a few fringe people off mine earlier this year. I doubt they noticed. I pretty much keep my friends list to the same as the "close friends and family" group, I don't see the point in broadcasting my photos far and wide.

I also think that Facebook is a really excellent resource for sharing photos with overseas friends, and better than email. The ones without kids can scroll past the miniwheel posts, the bikers can look for biking adventures, etc. You can access what you want. Email is more down your throat.

Agree about the photo sharing & my FB is locked down to family pretty much.

I was thinking more about/being a bit sarcastic about updates/being tagged in posts saying "auntie Edna is on her last legs/just died", or stuff in that vein...

When our mother died, the last place we thought of announcing it to family/friends was FB. May be I'm old fashioned.