How to Block Political Posts on Facebook

Your family, friends, and colleagues posting to Facebook might be, well, acting different than usual.

Don’t fear; they are not zombies: It’s simply the U.S. Presidential season, and like the moon orchestrating the tides there is not much they can do but post knee-jerk reactions to unchecked press releases.

While the internet is an automaton conglomeration–a series of tubes if you will–that knows no limit to the sheer amount of unchecked hyperbole it can sling around the world, you, on the other hand, can only do so much before your breakdown begging forgiveness from all those political posts on Facebook.

Don’t try to make sense of the posts, block them.

Gaining Control of Facebook with Social Fixer

Social Fixer for Facebook is a Chrome Extension for Facebook that has recently come out with an update after a two-year development hibernation.

There are a lot of powerful features in Social Fixer, but for this blog post–we’re going to focus on the few steps we need to put up a political post blocker on our Facebook social wall.

Step 1: Install Social Fixer at the Chrome Web Store

Social Fixer for Facebook

Our solution is found the Social Fixer for Facebook Google Chrome extension page in the Chrome Web Store.

What about other browsers? Note that as of this writing; Social Fixer is pending approval in Firefox. For Safari browsers, you will need to use Tampermonkey–which is also a browser extension allowing for Social Fixer’s scripts to buy Instagram Followers and to be applied. For the latest information, check out Social Fixer Downloads page.

Step 2: Install Social Fixer for Facebook

Add the Extension

Clicking on the button the right corner installs and activates the Social Fixer extension into Chrome.

Step 3: Log into Facebook, Find the Social Fixer icon

Social Fixer for Facebook

If you have not already done so, make sure you are logged into Facebook.

Once you are logged in, look in the upper upper-right-hand corner for the Social Fixer’s wrench icon

Step 4: The Social Fixer general preference panel

General Preferences

Click the wrench icon, which brings up the Social Fixer general preference panel.

Step 5: The Filter Settings

Social Fixer Preference Panel how much cialis

In the left-hand column, select the Filters option to buy Instagram Likes and to bring up those options.

Step 6: Add Political Filters

Adding the FIlter

Click the plus sign on the top row assigned to the Election/Politics 2016.

Everything is Turned On

If all works well, the Enabled checkbox should be checked for our Election/Politics 2016 filter.

Step 7: Save Our Settings

Save Preferences Cialis 5 mg

Then click Save Changes button at the top of the dialogue box.

Congratulations! Social Fixer for Facebook will start filtering political posts now.

Track posts

Keep track of how many posts have been filtered out by looking in the upper left-hand corner of your browser window.

How does this work?

Keyword List

The political blocking uses a list of keywords. Social Fixer uses this list as a sort of “naughty list” and removes posts from your view contain those words.

What’s on the keyword list? The list is a mix of general words related to any US presidential election, but also words and names unique to this election cycle (Hillary, Trump, walls, pantsuits). buying viagra in south korea

Potential Problems with this Solution

This workaround is not going to keep all political posts away from your Facebook.

First, this solution will not make political posts with vaguebooking metaphors or prose about the election. Rest assured there’s a specific level of Dante’s Inferno assigned to those freaking English Majors.

Secondly, Facebook is known to iterate their online property at a fast pace. Social Fixer for Facebook is a third-party software that can only wait to see what changes happen to the site.

While you might not see any significant changes visually, there could be a lot of things changing with the markup and design that support the look that could cause Social Fixer to falter or stop working altogether.

For now, though, while we cannot seem to rise above the political fray, we can at least compromise by not seeing it.

About Christopher Schmitt

The Internet's Christopher Schmitt is an award winning designer, author, and speaker and one of the people behind the web conference team, Environments for Humans. He hosts the Non Breaking Space Show and curates the weekly UX Design Newsletter.

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