Need Help with My Facebook Feed

[Christine]

So, I am not a fan of Facebook and, these days, I use it solely for a few animal rescue groups I am involved in. I still have "friends" on Facebook, of course, but I don't overly interact and maybe that's the problem.

Several months ago, I started to notice that my feed was littered with recommended Facebook pages and people to follow. I went into my settings and that seemed to help a bit for a short time, but it's back to being almost unreadable. Lots of pages for me to follow and they do align sometimes with my interests, but they are just gimmicky type stuff. I just scroll on by trying to find my legit stuff and it's getting very difficult. There's also lots of ads and I know I can't overly get past those, but the recommended pages and stuff are terrible. Feel like I'm missing a simple way to clean this up. Any ideas? Worried I"m missing the important animal stuff I'm really there for. Thanks!

 

[SM1992]

This might help. On the posts page there should be a list of categories on the left. Click "feeds" and it should only show posts from friends and things you follow. Once there you can further narrow what you see by chosing "friends" "groups" and others. You'll have to do this each time you go on Facebook.

 

[lovesmurfs]

Mine gets that way every so often. When I can't take it anymore, I hit the X on the top right of the ad. Sometimes I'll give the reason that it's Irrelevant. I go down the feed as long as I feel like it, and then it usually cleans up my feed for a while.

 

[Christine]

This might help. On the posts page there should be a list of categories on the left. Click "feeds" and it should only show posts from friends and things you follow. Once there you can further narrow what you see by chosing "friends" "groups" and others. You'll have to do this each time you go on Facebook.

Thanks, that seemed to be all in order so not sure what more I can do.

 

[Christine]

Mine gets that way every so often. When I can't take it anymore, I hit the X on the top right of the ad. Sometimes I'll give the reason that it's Irrelevant. I go down the feed as long as I feel like it, and then it usually cleans up my feed for a while.

Thanks. It's not the ads so much that get me, it's these suggested pages. For instance, I keep getting THe Handmaid's Tale Fan Club or National's Park and pages for actors. So much so that my entire feed is littered with it. I keep clicking that I'm not interested and then I get a new proliferance of groups to follow. My actual content that I want is very hard to see at this point.

 

[robinb]

Every once in a while an ad or a follow recommendation ends up being every 3 or 4 posts. It completely clutters up my feed with garbage. When that happens, I start to "x" out and block every single one of them until I've killed about a dozen. Then, I kill and restart the app. It will usually clear up to a more reasonable interval.

I also use "Facebook Purity" on my laptop. It gets rid of a lot of garbage, including all the ads.

 

[irlandaise]

I recently installed a Firefox add-on called Social Fixer for Facebook, which has gotten rid of those annoying Reels and Suggested Groups. Those were the filters I selected; there are many others available.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/socialfixer/

 

[Imzadi]

This is on your Facebook home page?

When you see a post you do not want click on the 3 dots in the upper right corner. Then a drop down menu will appear. Click not interested. (There should be a notification pop-up telling you you will not see posts like that anymore.) The also click the X to remove the post, letting FB know you really, really do not want to see that post. All this helps the algorithms know what you do and do not want to see.

Here is a pic:



Also go through all your friends. Click on the friend to get to their page. Under their name click on Friends. A pop-up box should appear. Click to Unfollow them, if you don't want to see any of their stuff. Then click Edit Friend List. Then Click either:

Restricted

Acquaintances

This way, you don't see anything from them at all if you don't want to. (I have several "Friends" where we only play games and need each other's help to play more games and such.) I never see any of their stuff.

 

[Christine]

This is on your Facebook home page?

When you see a post you do not want click on the 3 dots in the upper right corner. Then a drop down menu will appear. Click not interested. (There should be a notification pop-up telling you you will not see posts like that anymore.) The also click the X to remove the post, letting FB know you really, really do not want to see that post. All this helps the algorithms know what you do and do not want to see.

Here is a pic:

View attachment 964458

Also go through all your friends. Click on the friend to get to their page. Under their name click on Friends. A pop-up box should appear. Click to Unfollow them, if you don't want to see any of their stuff. Then click Edit Friend List. Then Click either:

Restricted

Acquaintances

This way, you don't see anything from them at all if you don't want to. (I have several "Friends" where we only play games and need each other's help to play more games and such.) I never see any of their stuff.

Thanks @Imzadi, I actually know how to do all this but there is SO MUCH of it that to go through each and every recommended thing on my feed and click "not interested" takes me just about everything minute that I am perusing Facebook. I kid you not. It's like some mass push algorithm has taken over my account and I have no idea how to get back to however it was where I'd just have this stuff randomnly.

 

[Marrila]

I understand the frustration. I sometimes take 5 or so minutes to hit hide ad and then irrelevant over and over. It does help for awhile.

 

[_19disnA]

Don't use FB that often so don't really notice. However, something similar happens to me on Linkedin so I have to assume they both work in a similar manner. My life doesn't revolve around either, so I just tend to ignore things/suggested people/groups I have no interest in.

FB constantly 'recommends' people I might be interested and never am................LOL. This week it seems like everyone with a cat/dog is showing up when we have never owned one.

 

[Imzadi]

Thanks @Imzadi, I actually know how to do all this but there is SO MUCH of it that to go through each and every recommended thing on my feed and click "not interested" takes me just about everything minute that I am perusing Facebook. I kid you not. It's like some mass push algorithm has taken over my account and I have no idea how to get back to however it was where I'd just have this stuff randomnly.

I think you have to do it a few times for the algorithms to understand you really, really mean it. "Don't show me this JUNK!" When you scroll past something, it thinks it's okay to be there. And that's when the avalanche of useless, related stuff starts.

It's the same for YouTube. I LOVE watching YouTube shorts. I find the format better than TikTok. And I'm not on TikTok enough for it to know my preferences. It shows me a lot of stuff I'm not interested in. And searching for stuff is just weird.

Whereas, I'm on YouTube so much that it really has learned my preferences and what I tell it I don't want to see. And what it has learned I WILL click on and more specifically, will watch again. So, now, even though it shows me some "random" stuff, it's not so random anymore. And when it suggests something absolutely brand new, it often turns out to be stuff I find I am really, really interested in but didn't even know was out there.

For instance: Last night, a new to me, college aged, sibling singing group, (2 brothers & 1 sister) was suggested. Normally, I'd scroll past this kind of amateur singing stuff, except the name of the 60's song caught my eye. I clicked on it and within the first 5 notes, the first brother's singing made me sit up, his voice is so beautiful and full of emotion.

I click on their YouTube page and halfway down, there it is, a cover of the song The Prayer by Celine Dion & Andrea Bocelli, which I've listed to on YouTube countless times, along with almost every other Celine song. And the siblings voices are very similar. The algorithms also know I listen almost exclusively to 60s & 70's music and Broadway tunes, which is this sibling group's specialty with their rich, finely crafted harmonics. They covered a Simon & Garfunkel song and made it a 3-part harmony! I listened to the Osmonds & Donny & Marie, which is why it suggested another sibling group. (I skip almost everything 90s and forward, and bad, amateurishly sung stuff, like people singing into their bathroom mirrors and taping themselves.)

I end up spending the evening listening to almost all the siblings songs. "Liking" them, so the algorithms know, "YES! More of this!" and it helps the group move up and be suggested on other people's suggestions. I end up subscribing after listening to almost all their songs. And I had a great evening, watching no one getting murdered, no songs getting murdered, and no political stuff.

It takes time, but it's so worth it when the algorithms figure it out: you just want dog rescue stuff. So, do a bit of unliking now and hang in there. The junk stuff will be gone after the next few to several visits.

 

[irlandaise]

Thanks @Imzadi, I actually know how to do all this but there is SO MUCH of it that to go through each and every recommended thing on my feed and click "not interested" takes me just about everything minute that I am perusing Facebook.

I clicked Hide on Suggested Groups and Reels for months, and FB never got the hint that I didn't want them. If you don't use Firefox, check for add-ons for your browser(s) that will provide similar functionality as Social Fixer.

 

[Christine]

I clicked Hide on Suggested Groups and Reels for months, and FB never got the hint that I didn't want them. If you don't use Firefox, check for add-ons for your browser(s) that will provide similar functionality as Social Fixer.

Yeah, it seems like it's not getting the hint. I keep going back to the Handmaid's Tale Fan Club. I have told it 3 times that I'm not interested, but it still keeps coming.

 

[Imzadi]

I clicked Hide on Suggested Groups and Reels for months, and FB never got the hint that I didn't want them. If you don't use Firefox, check for add-ons for your browser(s) that will provide similar functionality as Social Fixer.

Yeah, it seems like it's not getting the hint. I keep going back to the Handmaid's Tale Fan Club. I have told it 3 times that I'm not interested, but it still keeps coming.

Hmm, do you perhaps have an ad-blocker on? Or are you using an old version of your browser? Sometimes, each of those can interfere with "getting the message." Every once in a while, work will send me a link where I have to fill out stuff on a website. The site won't come up properly, or worse, after I filled it all in, it won't submit it properly, even though everything looks all correctly in order. I have to try different browsers. Then, *poof!* it's submitted properly.

 

[Imzadi]

Also, are your Ad preferences set to NOT personalize ads?

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You can choose whether we use this information to show you ads by adjusting your Activity information from ad partners setting in your Ad preferences.​

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Adjust what ads are shown to you based on your Activity information from ad partners​

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2. Select
   
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5. Click Activity information from ad partners.
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