Facebook has now become an integral part of our day. Whether we access it to socialise, check up on each other or catch up on international news -- the social media platform has always been at the forefront of networking for its users. However, lately, with the advent of one or more new apps, it seems to be taking a backseat with its regular audience. Of course, it will be a snowy day in March when Facebook finally loses its credibility!
Among all the improvements, the app has unquestionably upped its privacy policies and tightened its ropes around platform security. But off late, it has also introduced features that can easily control and monitor the influx of comments or interaction on your feed. In its blog post, the social media giant talks about how users can now take the lead and "control what they see". The change allows you more scope to choose from who and what you'd prefer to see on your newsfeed every morning. Apart from that, it can also let you control interactions and the way you'd want to use them.
How does this change work?
Facebook's new change sanctions users to switch up their usual feed. The 'usual feed', which is otherwise determined using an algorithm, is generally available in chronological order. Another change also makes sure you can control the comments on your public post -- which means you can choose from particular people or the pages you've tagged or no one.
If you're wondering how to go about using these features, we've simplified the process for you. Read on to find out how to change these settings on your Facebook account:
According to Help Centre, here's how you can excise control over who sees what on your newsfeed:
- On Facebook Desktop, find the Account drop-down menu on the top right corner.
- Under Account, you will find Settings & Privacy > News Feed Preferences.
On clicking this title, it will lead you to a new window where you will find the following options at your disposal:
Manage Favourites: On choosing this alternative, you can prioritise people (as well as pages), which will appear higher on your newsfeed. While Facebook already has an algorithm that prioritises friends and pages based on your past interactions with them, this option will let you choose as many as 30 friends (and pages) by adding them to your favourites.
Unfollow: As the name suggests, this title will help you mute or unfollow people. However, this does not mean you will be 'unfriended' and will continue to exist on their friend list or be a part of the group.
Reconnect: This option allows users to follow (or reconnect) with people they've previously unfollowed in the past. This also applies to groups or pages that you've chosen to unfollow.
Snooze: Just like your alarms, you can hit snooze on people, pages as well as groups for 30 days.
Here's how you can choose to see your newsfeed chronologically
On your Facebook Desktop, find a panel on your news feed in the left with multiple titles. Under the same, click on See More. Further, click on Most Recent. After doing this, you can reload the page to find the newest stories on your feed instead of the usual algorithm. For now, this feature is only available for Android devices. However, Facebook mentioned how it will soon be accessible to iOS users in the future.
According to Help Centre, here's how you can excise control over who can comment on your post:
- On Facebook Desktop, find the Account drop-down menu on the top right corner.
- Under Account, you will find Settings & Privacy -- further, you can click on Public Posts.
- Click on Who Can Follow Me, and make sure the option of Public selected.
- Click on Edit next to Public Post Comment, and select who is allowed to comment on your public posts.
Public- This will include everyone, including those users who are not your friends.
Friends- Your Facebook friends, those who are tagged in the post, and their friends.
Friends of Friends- Your friends who are tagged in the post, and their friends.
You can also control who can comment on individual public posts on your profile. Here's how to do it:
- Click on a public post on your profile. You will find three dots on the top right corner of your post.
- On clicking it, you will find the option Who can comment on my post?
- Further, select who is allowed to interact with the post based on your preference. Public, Friends (or tagged profiles) and the pages that you've mentioned. If anyone not on this link comes across the post, they will be able to see it but not interact with it. It will show an option saying that a limited number of people can interact with this post -- just like the micro-blogging site Twitter introduced in late last year.
