You may decide to block your ex after finally deciding to break up, forward their emails to your spam folder, and avoid all the places where you could possibly run into them. But there is no way you can escape them on social media.
Sure, you can block your former boyfriend or girlfriend on Facebook, but if you ever have a change of heart, you'll have to suffer from the embarrassment of sending them a new friend request. And do you really want to throw salt in your wounds if they decline to accept it?
Now Facebook is making it easier for you to get through your breakup by announcing on Thursday that it is testing new tools that will give users the option of hiding their exes.
We all know that a relationship isn't official until it's Facebook official. With that being said, most people who are in a relationship probably reveal so on the social media site. Now when a user changes their relationship status back to single, they will automatically see three new options to soften that breakup blow.
The user can opt to see less of their ex's name and profile photo without having to unfriend or block them. If a user selects to "see less of" their ex option, that person's posts won't pop up in your News Feed, and their name will not be suggested when you write a new message or tag friends in photos. That means you can feel free to tag away without being reminded that your ex wasn't there to share this happy moment with you.
The second option would be to limit the photos, videos, or status updates that your former partner can see. This basically is just updating your privacy settings to hide posts from your ex.
The final option allows users to edit who can see their past posts that include a former partner. You can also untag yourself from posts your ex previously tagged you in so you can forget you two even knew each other.
"This work is part of our ongoing effort to develop resources for people who may be going through difficult moments in their lives," Facebook product manager Kelly Winters writes in a blog post announcing the new relationship experience features. "We hope these tools will help people end relationships on Facebook with greater ease, comfort and sense of control."
Facebook began testing these breakup tools—which are optional—today for mobile devices in the U.S. It will roll them out more widely depending on positive user feedback.
Source: Facebook
