On the web, things can get too noisy. On Facebook, it's indeed too noisy there.
Facebook users can post anything as long as it complies with its policy. This makes Facebook a place where people can share almost anything imaginable. But still, there may be things that others may not want to hear or see.
Since the News Feed is where is everything the social media has to give, there is no saying what will show up on their next scroll. Here, Facebook is giving users a bit more control, and that is by introducing 'Keyword Snooze'.
As Facebook explained:
Initially released in a test phase, the feature is located in a post's upper right-hand menu in the News Feed.
What it does, is allowing users to temporarily hide posts by keywords, which are pulled directly from text in that post. For example. if users choose "snooze" as the keyword, Facebook will filter that particular word so users won't see posts in their News Feed containing that exact word or phrase from any person, Page or Group for 30 days.
"Even though we work to show you the most relevant posts on News Feed, we don’t always get it right. That’s why we’ve designed features like See First, Hide, Unfollow, Snooze, and now, Keyword Snooze," said Facebook.
At the moment of introduction, one drawback of using the Keyword Snooze feature is that users can't un-snooze the keyword once they've set it up. What this means, they have to wait for the next remaining days until they can see posts that have the chosen keyword again.
While the feature can indeed be useful, an option to permanently mute a keyword should also be an option. Instead of relying on users flags or algorithms or even a team of people, Facebook can make this feature to allow users to mute what they really don't want to see, permanently. Like for example, racial slurs.
A spokesperson at Facebook said that the company is working on options for different snooze time, as well as an off button turn return everything to default.
The snooze feature is being tested with a small group of users.