14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook is all about making things easier for users nowadays, it seems. To that purpose, the company came up with a few extra options for making it easier for you to filter out the content you’re not comfortable seeing on the platform.
While Facebook’s algorithms are already doing plenty of the work on their own, users should have their say in what content they see and what content gets ignored. For this purpose, Facebook introduced the “Unfollow” button a while ago, and the company wants you to actually start using it.
“News Feed is where you go to catch up on what’s happening with your friends and find the content that matters to you. What you do in News Feed helps determine what you see in News Feed. You decide who you want to connect to, and what Pages and public figures you want to follow,” writes Greg Marra, Facebook product manager.
He explains that starting today there will be more features for this purpose on the site. First off, the News Feed settings will now show a list of the top people, Pages and Groups posts, that you’ve seen over the past week. You can choose to sort the list by people, Pages or groups posts and unfollow any of these if you don’t want to see their stories in the News Feed anymore. It’s always possible to get them back in your list by going back to the respective pages.
More options for everyone
Then, Facebook brings in new ways to give feedback about the News Feed. Basically, if you see a story that you’re not interested in or don’t want to see, you can tap the arrow at the top right of the post to hide it. Up until now, Facebook would ask you if you wanted to share why you wanted to hide the story, but now, you’re getting more options.
For instance, you’ll be able to report the post or just go on and see less stories from that particular individual. If you choose the latter, you can then unfollow them.
“News Feed settings will be available starting today on desktop and mobile. The new options for giving feedback about your News Feed will be available today on desktop, and coming to mobile in the coming weeks,” Marra writes.
If you’re not seeing the changes just yet, you should have a little patience as the company rolls out the changes to the entire network. Given how big Facebook is, it may take a little while before you see the new feature.
