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Facebook is the most useful when you see what you want to see, and don’t see what you don’t want to see. With Snooze features, Facebook is giving users more control over what appears in their News Feed.
With Facebook’s two Snooze features, users can block keywords and/or friends’ posts on their Facebook News Feed for 30 days.
Keyword Snooze
Facebook announced last week that it’s testing Keyword Snooze, a feature that lets you block friends’ posts that contain certain keywords. When you block a word using Keyword Snooze, Facebook will not show friends’ posts that contain that word in your News Feed for 30 days. After 30 days Facebook will ask you if you want to keep snoozing the keyword.
You can use this feature to avoid friends’ posts that contain spoilers, for times such as when you haven’t seen the final episode of Westworld or who was evicted from Big Brother. You can also use this to avoid posts you don’t want to see such as posts about a politician or celebrity. Just broke up with your true love? Maybe you want to avoid posts about weddings…
For a post to be blocked from the News Feed with Keyword Snooze, the post must contain the keyword that has been snoozed. So if you have snoozed the keyword “wedding” for example, a post that contains a wedding photo without the word “wedding” in the text will still appear in your News Feed.
Note that Keyword Snooze only works to block friends’ posts with keywords. Advertisements that contain blocked keywords will still appear in your News Feed.
The company is testing this feature with some users and, if the test is successful it will roll out Keyword Snooze to all users.
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How to Use Keyword Snooze
Keyword Snooze is being tested by Facebook so you may not have this feature yet.
To use Keyword Snooze, find a friend’s post that has the keyword you want to block. Click or tap the three dots … in the upper right hand corner of the post. A drop-down menu will appear with the option to choose keywords to snooze for 30 days.
Unfortunately, you must actually see a post with the keyword you want to block in your News Feed in order to use Keyword Snooze. You can’t just list the keywords you want snoozed on Facebook.
Because Keyword Snooze is in the testing phase, Facebook may offer an alternative way to block keywords before this feature is available to all users. A Facebook representative told The Verge that Facebook is “considering other options for keyword snooze in the future, like a recurring list, or a pre-emptive snooze option in News Feed Preferences.” See The Verge, Facebook is testing a way to mute keywords.
For more options to control your Facebook News Feed, check out => How to Fix Your Frustrating Facebook Feed (Without Unfriending Anyone).
People Snooze
Facebook offers another Snooze feature that lets you block a friends’ posts from appearing on your News Feed for 30 days. Let’s say your friend has a big event coming up and they are posting every single detail about the event, but you want to be surprised by what happens. Or perhaps your friend has different political views from you and you want to block their posts for 30 days before or after election day.
People Snooze lets users block friends’ posts from their News Feed for 30 days. (Note: Facebook calls this feature “Snooze” but I’m calling it “People Snooze” to avoid confusion with “Keyword Snooze”).If you snooze a friend, they will not get a notice from Facebook that you have snoozed them. This snooze feature also works with Facebook Pages and Groups.
Unlike Keyword Snooze, People Snooze is available to all Facebook users.
To use People Snooze, find a post from a friend whose posts you’d like to block for 30 days. Click or tap the three dots … in the upper right corner of the post. A drop-down menu will appear.
Click Snooze for 30 Days to block that friend’s posts for 30 days.
If you change your mind and want to undo the snooze for that friend, go to that person’s profile page. At the top you will see that the friend has been snoozed. Click the Snoozed button to un-snooze them.
Your Thoughts
Have you seen the Keyword Snooze feature on your Facebook News Feed? Do you think these Snooze features are helpful? What would you use either Keyword Snooze or People Snooze for on Facebook?
Share your thoughts in the Comments section below!
*Facebook on phone image (edited) courtesy of www.shopcatalog.com via Flickr and Creative Commons
This new feature is really good. Facebook is really thinking about their users’ privacy and personalization. Very nice article author, keep sharing!
Hello Afiya, Yes, blocking words and people is a great way for people to take control of their News Feeds. I do hope Facebook lets us list keywords we’d like blocked so we don’t have to see them in a post first before we can block them.
i also try this process and it all works thank for sharing this concept on how to block message from news feed
Hi Noah, I’m glad you were able to use blocking effectively to control your Facebook News Feed. Thanks for taking the time to let us know.