By Katherine Bindley
Quick: Shout out the first three words that come to mind when
someone says " Facebook."
A few years ago, this exercise was easy: Birthdays. Brides.
Babies. Boom!
Now, inside the mindless, thankless news feed time suck, you can
find all that plus political rants, stalker-y ads, fake news,
Russian propaganda... It's hard to keep it to three words
anymore.
Facebook was always a little icky, but at some point leading up
to the 2016 U.S. elections, things got disturbing. Seeing pictures
of an ex suddenly pop up is one thing; being vulnerable to bad
actors who want to threaten democracy is quite another.
The problem is, it's hard to live without Facebook. It has
become, for many, the default operating system/personal directory
of the internet. There's no better way to track someone down, alert
a network of people you know to big news and, yes, wish someone a
happy birthday. Unless everyone departs the social network en masse
(not likely given its continued growth), most of us are going to
keep our Facebook accounts alive.
So how can we live with Facebook and live with ourselves at the
same time?
Facebook says it's working on its problems. It's putting more
resources into fact-checking and striving to give users more
information about the subjects and sources they're reading. The
company also plans to share more about who's behind each of its
political ads.
But even if you don't feel like you've been duped by Russians,
you may want to restore your Facebook feed to its former, simpler
self.
While there's no magic trick to make you love your Facebook
feed, there are techniques for cleaning it up and reorganizing it
like a front-hall closet, Marie Kondo style. If you take out your
phone and spend a little time doing all of the following, you can
turn that wild beast of a news feed into something tamer:
Prioritize People
The first step is to impose some order on your friend list. In
the iPhone app, tap the three horizontal lines at the bottom and
scroll down to Settings. Tap News Feed Preferences, then
"Prioritize who to see first." On Android, the three lines are up
top, and you just scroll down to News Feed Preferences. (There's a
chance your Facebook icons look a bit different than this, because
Facebook is always testing new designs.)
Select which friends you want to show up at the top of your
feed. If you prioritize only five people out of, say, 700, you'll
probably still see too much noise. Unfortunately, you can only
prioritize 30, so... sorry, Cousin Rick!
ID Close Friends
There's actually a second way to tell Facebook who you care
about, by marking people as "close friends." (Likewise, you can
downgrade someone with an "acquaintance" label.) Click through to a
friend's profile page and hit the blue "friends" icon. Tap "edit
friend lists" to add them to "close friends" or "acquaintances" --
or any other lists that appear. People won't be able to see how
you've classified them.
If you want to view a feed consisting only of close friends,
click the three horizontal lines and select Feeds. You'll see feeds
for those other lists, too.
At some point, I'd prioritized my sister but she wasn't marked
as a close friend. When I asked Facebook if there was any value in
doing both, a company spokeswoman said that marking people as
priorities is most important. Adding them as "close friends" just
boosts the signal.
Ditch the Duds
You can go through and unfollow a bunch of people at once --
without them finding out. Go to News Feed Preferences, tap
"Unfollow people" and select people whose posts you don't want to
see.
In individual posts, click the three dots at the right-hand
corner to unfollow people piecemeal.
Look for the Snooze Function
An experimental feature called Snooze lets you stop seeing
someone in your feed for a set amount of time. If someone is
over-posting on a subject that you suspect has an end-date, just
hit snooze. I've only seen a 30-day snooze option, but Facebook is
also testing 24-hour and seven-day breaks.
The Snooze feature isn't appearing in everyone's app, and
Facebook won't confirm a broader rollout. Still, it's worth looking
for -- it would appear as an option on individual posts when you
tap the three dots.
Hide and See Fewer
Even if you pare back your people, you may still be at the mercy
of your favorites posting things you don't want to see. Facebook's
"Hide post" option may (or may not) help.
Tap the three dots in a post, then select the option. You'll
notice it also says "See fewer posts like this." Let's talk about
what that means. Does doing this to a friend's political post mean
you want fewer political posts -- or fewer updates from that
friend?
A Facebook spokeswoman said that when you tap this option, an
algorithm takes different factors into account, including whether
the post features photos, videos or links to articles, what time of
day it is, and yes, what topics it covers, including politics.
Unfortunately, you can't specify what it was about the post you
didn't like.
Review Your Liked Pages
Facebook says its algorithm is always learning. All your past
likes, comments and interactions are influencing what shows up in
your feed. That's why you should check up on old pages you once
liked.
It's tricky from the app: You either go into the Unfollow
setting and tap the Sort button at the top left and choose Pages
Only. If that's too confusing, go to search and type "Pages Liked
By Me." The first result there is a liked page -- tap "see all" to
get the rest.
Think about whether those likes reflect your current interests;
if not, unlike.
Flag Fake News
Facebook has been offering users the ability to report
suspicious links for years, but it streamlined the process in 2016.
If you see a post that looks suspicious, tap the three dots. Then
tap "Give feedback on this post" followed by "False News."
Flagged stories "may be reviewed by independent third-party
fact-checkers. A story may be marked as disputed if these
fact-checkers find the story to be false," according to Facebook's
help center.
If, after a few days, this exercise brings you no joy, maybe
switch to Instagram. Though that Facebook-owned network was also
hit by Russian-backed ads -- and also has an algorithm deciding
what you see -- it can still feel more like what Facebook used to
be. You know, a photo-heavy stream with plenty of brides and
babies.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 08, 2017 12:23 ET (17:23 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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