Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook Inc. has updated its News Feed to give users more control over what they see. There are now ways for users to tell Facebook which content it wants to see more of, less, or not at all with just a few taps.

By default, users follow all their friends on Facebook, which can get overwhelming. In addition, Facebook’s added sponsored pages that appear in the News Feed which many users could care less about. With this new update users can tell Facebook to show less from individual people, or none at all.

So how do you start filtering your News Feed?

3 ways to filter Facebook’s News Feed

Directly from the News Feed

While browsing your News Feed, you may encounter stories that you do not care for. To remove the content and related content, you simply click or tap on the arrow pointing down on the story and choose ‘I don’t want to see this.’

Facebook will then present other options such as ‘See less from —-’ specific people or the option to report a post if you think it is inappropriate or a scam. Based on your choice, Facebook can then recommend the option to unfollow that person altogether.

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Unfollowing

The ability to unfollow a friend has been around for some time. You can either go to their profile page and click unfollow, or select “unfollow” from the drop-down arrow that appears in a News Feed story.

To be clear, unfollowing a friend does not mean you are removing them from your friends’ list, you’re just filtering what you want to see on your News Feed. You can re-follow them later.

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News Feed settings

To get a general view of who you are following (and not following) on your friends’ list, you can simply visit your News Feed Settings. Here, you will see which friends you saw most of from the previous week, with a button beside their name to follow or unfollow them.

You can access these Settings from your Home Page, where you will see ‘News Feed’ on the lefthand side bar (just beneath your profile picture). Hover over the ‘News Feed’ title, and the ‘Settings’ icon will appear to the left. Click this icon and the option to ‘Edit Settings’ will appear.

For mobile users, click the ‘More’ button at the bottom of your Home Page. Scroll down to ‘Manage News Feed’ to see  the people, pages or groups you are following. From this page, you can also review which of your friends you have unfollowed in the past and choose to re-follow them.

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The new News Feed started rolling out for desktop and mobile users last week, but the option to give feedback about your News Feed will first be available on desktop and will come to mobile in the coming weeks.

photo credit: leeander via photopin cc