Facebook News Feed Tweak Tames Motormouth Friends

Most of us have them: those Facebook "friends" who we like well enough, sure, but whose constant rambling turns the News Feed into a monologue and a dreary one at that. Facebook is rolling out new tools today to make tweaking what the News Feed shows – and doesn't show – more straightforward, with the useful ability to pare back on the amount you see from certain people without being forced to actively remove them from your friends list altogether. Meanwhile, there's also the ability to see whose posts you've been seeing the most of.

A new "Seen Most Last Week" feature will show the top people whose stories have shown up in the News Feed over the previous seven days, with options to show the same for Pages and Groups.

From there you'll also be able to unfollow those people, rather than having to dig into their individual profiles to find the button.

The same page will also keep a list of who you've unfollowed, just in case you decide to give them a reprieve and add them back to your friends list.

In the News Feed itself, the drop-down in the top right of each story will now include the option to "see less" from that individual or Page. A second option allows you to go the whole hog and unfollow them altogether.

It's not the first time in recent months that Mark Zuckerberg & Co. have tried to update the News Feed to make it more welcoming. Back in September, the company decided to slot more "trending" news into the timeline, in addition to bumping older but popular stories it thought users may have missed.

Facebook will be launching the more granular controls on the desktop version today. The same controls for mobile will be added in the coming weeks, the company says.

SOURCE Facebook