Given the current political climate, your Facebook feed can be a hotbed of daily stress and intrigue instead of being a brief respite from your daily routine. You may be tired of seeing one political rant after another, or perhaps you have grown weary and suspicious of the legitimacy of the news updates your Facebook friend has been relentlessly posting.
Facebook recently rolled out an update that allows users to report what they deem as fake news, but this did not seem to abate the number of political news and updates being shared by your well-meaning friends. If you want to take a break from all of the political posts but you don't have the heart to unfriend anybody, consider using these two browser extensions to temporarily hide all the noise.
Remove All Politics From Facebook
This is a Google Chrome extension that works like a toggle switch — all you have to do is to click on the blue button that says, "Add to Chrome" to add it as an extension to your browser, then switch it "on" and "off."
The developer of the browser extension does not, however, seem to say how it filters out the post, but it would be safe to say that it will be based on specific names and keywords.
Social Fixer
If you're not using Chrome, Social Fixer is another browser extension that filters out political posts. Unlike the Chrome plugin we first suggested, this one works on multiple browsers such as Mozilla and Safari. It is a bit more complicated to set up than the first one.
Once you have added it as an extension to your browser, it will show up as a wrench icon in the upper right section of your Facebook page. Just click on the icon, click "Social Fixer Settings," then click on "Filters." Select the option "Election/Politics 2017" by clicking on the green plus sign.
If you want to further customize it or if you want to hide only a certain political figure or political party, click on the option "Create a New Filter." Once finished, click on "Done Editing Filter."
Hide Political Posts From Specific Friends
If you don't want to use any browser extensions, you can opt to simply "unfollow" a friend by putting your mouse on one of their posts and clicking "unfollow." This way, you will remain friends with that user but you won't be able to see their posts.
If you don't want to banish friends completely from your timeline, you can hover your mouse on one of their stories and click on "Hide post." This notifies Facebook that you are not interested in seeing this friend's posts in the near future.
