How can I block upworthy and similar sites from my facebook feed
November 5, 2013 2:44 PM Subscribe
Lately, more and more links to upworthy and a newer site named viralnova have been showing up in my facebook feed all the damned time. A friend and I were commiserating and I told her I'd look into finding a way to block it.
My first measly attempts:
I first downloaded a couple FF addons that do blocking, and no dice.
I redirected the domains to 127.0.0.1 in my hosts file. That works while accessing the site itself.
However, it still shows in my feed. I went to adblock and saw a bunch of what I think is their adservers being the hosts for the images (if not the rest of the content). I didn't want to muck with any url strings for adblock, as I fear they may mingle their regular UI stuff with their ad stuff.
What can I do to block? Is there an adblock URL/string I can use? A greasemonkey script?
What do I need to share in comments here, to help any of you help me? I would prefer a x-browser approach if at all possible, as I'm not sure what browser she uses). As I said, I use FF, so if only one browser is used, I'd rather that.
My first measly attempts:
I first downloaded a couple FF addons that do blocking, and no dice.
I redirected the domains to 127.0.0.1 in my hosts file. That works while accessing the site itself.
However, it still shows in my feed. I went to adblock and saw a bunch of what I think is their adservers being the hosts for the images (if not the rest of the content). I didn't want to muck with any url strings for adblock, as I fear they may mingle their regular UI stuff with their ad stuff.
What can I do to block? Is there an adblock URL/string I can use? A greasemonkey script?
What do I need to share in comments here, to help any of you help me? I would prefer a x-browser approach if at all possible, as I'm not sure what browser she uses). As I said, I use FF, so if only one browser is used, I'd rather that.
You can't block URLs shared by people through their wall, you can only filter the person. Try "show only important" for these people.
posted by rhizome at 3:01 PM on November 5, 2013
posted by rhizome at 3:01 PM on November 5, 2013
Just double checked this process:
While logged in to Facebook at your computer, hover over the offending update until you see a little V appear in the upper right corner.
Click the V.
You should see a drop-down menu with several choices, one of which should be "Hide all from [annoying source]"
In my experience Facebook likes to "forget" your news feed preferences every few months, but it's easy enough to rectify, for now.
posted by trunk muffins at 3:02 PM on November 5, 2013 [4 favorites]
While logged in to Facebook at your computer, hover over the offending update until you see a little V appear in the upper right corner.
Click the V.
You should see a drop-down menu with several choices, one of which should be "Hide all from [annoying source]"
In my experience Facebook likes to "forget" your news feed preferences every few months, but it's easy enough to rectify, for now.
posted by trunk muffins at 3:02 PM on November 5, 2013 [4 favorites]
Maybe you could modify this Greasemonkey script?
posted by martinrebas at 3:08 PM on November 5, 2013
posted by martinrebas at 3:08 PM on November 5, 2013
Did FB Purity not work for you? It always gets rid of stuff like this for me, when the method that trunk muffins mentioned doesn't work.
posted by SMPA at 4:01 PM on November 5, 2013
posted by SMPA at 4:01 PM on November 5, 2013
Response by poster: I've not seen fb purity.
The issue with trunk muffins is that because it's shared, not from my actual friend, when i choose "hide" the "hide all from" shows $FRIEND not $ANNOYINGSPAMMYSHAREDLINKSOURCE. Which - I'd rather not do, because aside from these horrible life choices they make w/r/t facebook, I think they're mostly ok.
I'll look into purity and the greasemonkey script. Also I'll try social fixer. Thanks for the multiple options here, I'll reply back in case I get a hit, so anybody else who's interested can also engage in their own blocking :)
posted by symbioid at 4:17 PM on November 5, 2013
The issue with trunk muffins is that because it's shared, not from my actual friend, when i choose "hide" the "hide all from" shows $FRIEND not $ANNOYINGSPAMMYSHAREDLINKSOURCE. Which - I'd rather not do, because aside from these horrible life choices they make w/r/t facebook, I think they're mostly ok.
I'll look into purity and the greasemonkey script. Also I'll try social fixer. Thanks for the multiple options here, I'll reply back in case I get a hit, so anybody else who's interested can also engage in their own blocking :)
posted by symbioid at 4:17 PM on November 5, 2013
Hiding friend content is not all or nothing, I think if you select "only important," it might filter out URL reshares and things of that ilk.
posted by rhizome at 4:19 PM on November 5, 2013
posted by rhizome at 4:19 PM on November 5, 2013
Well, interesting. When I looked, I picked a shared item from Upworthy (topical!) and had the option to either block the friend or the original source of the shared link -- in this case, Upworthy.
It might make a difference whether the shared item was posted as a URL link, or shared from the source's Facebook page.
posted by trunk muffins at 4:41 PM on November 5, 2013
It might make a difference whether the shared item was posted as a URL link, or shared from the source's Facebook page.
posted by trunk muffins at 4:41 PM on November 5, 2013
I think you can hide everything from a Facebook page, but not a domain name. So if the Upworthy content is being shared from Upworthy's Facebook page, you could block this kind of content. But if your friends are going to upworthy.com and copying the URLs into Facebook, you can't block this.
posted by John Cohen at 4:49 PM on November 5, 2013
posted by John Cohen at 4:49 PM on November 5, 2013
Response by poster: I didn't see a block option on Upworthy's facebook page, alas...
posted by symbioid at 5:00 PM on November 5, 2013
posted by symbioid at 5:00 PM on November 5, 2013
Yeah, my experience is that FB provides tools to block some kinds of accounts, but not others. You've won this round, George Takei.
posted by box at 8:42 PM on November 5, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by box at 8:42 PM on November 5, 2013 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Well - I seem to have blocked some form of resharing from upworthy using the drop down menu in the upper right hand corner (I think the one I was trying only had the original poster - this one showed the upworthy sub-content as well, which had its own drop-menu I selected and THAT seemed to give me what trunk muffins was talking about.
I doubt it will remove all instances of upworthy content and who knows if it will remember, but... it's something.
posted by symbioid at 10:22 PM on November 5, 2013
I doubt it will remove all instances of upworthy content and who knows if it will remember, but... it's something.
posted by symbioid at 10:22 PM on November 5, 2013
I think the difference is that sometimes someone will copy & paste the Upworthy URL into their FB status, and sometimes they will use the "share in FB" function on the Upworthy site. The second one is categorised by FB as "content from Upworthy that is shared on FB" that users can block with the "hide all from [source]" (as you have just done). The first one is categorised by FB as just a regular status update by the user (which could contain any combination of text/URLs), which can only be blocked using the "hide all from [user]" function.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 1:18 AM on November 6, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by EndsOfInvention at 1:18 AM on November 6, 2013 [1 favorite]
I didn't see a block option on Upworthy's facebook page, alas...
It's not on the Facebook page, it's in the drop-down menu that appears when you click the upper-right corner of a post in your feed.
posted by John Cohen at 4:38 PM on November 6, 2013
It's not on the Facebook page, it's in the drop-down menu that appears when you click the upper-right corner of a post in your feed.
posted by John Cohen at 4:38 PM on November 6, 2013
Response by poster: Right - which I did end up finding, and I think it was as you/EndsofInvention said: where they sourced it from (facebook, upworthy itself, a share of a share, etc....) I've closed one vector via the menu, at least.
posted by symbioid at 5:12 PM on November 6, 2013
posted by symbioid at 5:12 PM on November 6, 2013
Best answer: I've recently been inundated with 'commented on' activity for all of my friends, despite having that option turned off for each friend, and it's exhausting and exasperating. BuzzFeed recommended Rather - an app for Chrome (they are working on apps for Firefox, etc) that's saved my sanity. You're able to block activity from your friends based on keywords you enter into a kill list - so, Miley Cyrus, Obama, etc, and even anything reposted from individual sites like upworthy.com can all be easily filtered out. So far I've found it to work well - thank goodness!!
posted by AthenaPolias at 5:26 PM on November 6, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by AthenaPolias at 5:26 PM on November 6, 2013 [3 favorites]
I take back my recommendation; they seem to have removed the "important only" levels of friendpost propagation. This from having yet another viralnova crapslug appear on my wall.
posted by rhizome at 6:55 PM on November 6, 2013
posted by rhizome at 6:55 PM on November 6, 2013
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by box at 3:00 PM on November 5, 2013