Facebook does it again! First, it was adding ads to your timeline, next it was posting articles and updates based on what your friends were doing. Now, Facebook is hijacking your timeline and inserting “Trending Articles”. While I’m not positive about the source, it’s likely that Facebook monitors the articles/blog posts that your friends are clicking on and sharing and then presumes that you’ll want to see them too.
Facebook inserts these trending articles to your timeline, presumably because your friends or family are sharing them.
Personally, I want Facebook to stay the heck out of my timeline.
So, in the spirit of reserving my timeline for my friends and family I did some testing and came up with a few steps that should remove these “Trending Articles” from my timeline. Give them a try and see if they work for you.
NOTE: Before you start, realize that the steps I’m detailing will block a series of apps and is a bit of a manual process. I get that…but right now, I haven’t found a better way. Also, each app that you block may impact other areas of functionality. For instance, if you use Spotify or Yahoo! News from within Facebook, blocking these apps to stop them from posting to your Trending Articles might also cause them to not work in other areas of Facebook. So…be cautious and evaluate whether you want to actually disable each app before you do it.
Ok…let’s get to it. To disable the apps that are posting to your Trending Articles, do this:
1) Log in to Facebook (yes…I actually typed that, but you’d be surprised how many people skip this step).
2) In the top right, drop down the triangle and choose Privacy Settings from the menu.
3) Next, scroll down and choose Blocked People and Apps
4) Type the name of the app that was posting to your timeline and you’ll see the app and any related apps. Just click it and it will be added to the list of apps that now are not allowed to interact with your Facebook account.
5) As you see apps post to your account, simply block them…which should cut down on the clutter in your Timeline.
I know it’s kind of a pain to have to manually block these apps, but Facebook it constantly trying to “bring your timeline to life”, meaning that they are going to continue to push apps to your timeline that they think are important to you. For a list of all the Timeline Apps that Facebook has in it’s annoying toolbox, you can go here:
https://www.facebook.com/about/timeline/apps
In the meantime, keep fighting the good fight and don’t let Facebook butt into your conversations with friends and family.
Have a better way to do this? I’d love to hear it in a comment!
Cheers!
–Sean
Update: For those who are a little more tech savvy and don’t mind installing browser add-ons, there is an add-on/plugin that you can install called FB Purity that will “cleanse” your Facebook timeline. If you’re a little more daring…you can check out the details here:
http://www.tothepc.com/archives/hide-remove-trending-articles-facebook/
Removing Trending Articles From Your Facebook Timeline http://t.co/tL5rvzkb via @socmedsean
It’s interesting how many people and apps are on this “blocked” list after a while.
I actually routinely hide these apps by clicking the little arrow on the top-right of game and app updates.
Thanks Sean! This article is a good resource I’ll send others to
Thanks, great article. I’ve had people come to me for advice on how to do this. Now I can just refer them to your article. Handy.
Thanks for the tips, Sean.
Removing Trending Articles From Your Facebook Timeline http://t.co/qaROFkvf via @socmedsean
This is excellent. I do get so tired of reading about the kardashians that I could barf, so to find out they are trending, right in the middle of my Timeline, is so annoying. Thanks!
Removing Trending Articles From Your Facebook Timeline http://t.co/gF1cNpQD via @socmedsean
Cool bananas, thanks for this.
Removing Trending Articles From Your Facebook Timeline http://t.co/eCRhIiAs via @socmedsean
Removing Trending Articles From Your Facebook Timeline http://t.co/UdXSMZQC с помощью @socmedsean
Removing Trending Articles From Your Facebook Timeline http://t.co/VMXTTx9B via @socmedsean
Removing Trending Articles From Your Facebook Timeline http://t.co/O17EbSu7 via @socmedsean
Removing Trending Articles From Your Facebook Timeline http://t.co/1Hx5HCFR via @socmedsean
Removing Trending Articles From Your Facebook Timeline http://t.co/Zvy4WoxS via @socmedsean
That’s interesting–sounds a bit like Facebook is taking a page from Google+. Coincidence? I think not.
Removing Trending Articles From Your #Facebook Timeline
http://t.co/MQH8qjg1
#Socialmedia
Removing Trending Articles From Your Facebook Timeline http://t.co/6QvA1t7V via @socmedsean
Removing Trending Articles From Your Facebook Timeline http://t.co/YBieAZr9 via @socmedsean
fed up of #facebook filling your timeline – here’s a trick to remove trending articles http://t.co/HU7dsVus #timeline
Removing Trending Articles From Your Facebook Timeline http://t.co/0sgPzHp3 via @socmedsean
How to Remove Trending Articles From Your Facebook Timeline http://t.co/ASt8btnW
I find it hilarious that Facebook have introduced an element that is so hated, there are spamming posts on how to remove it.
Removing Trending Articles From Your Facebook Timeline http://t.co/CGGEFLEW via @socmedsean
Removing Trending Articles From Your Facebook Timeline http://t.co/hJSgOeCK via @socmedsean
#eav #locris Removing Trending Articles From Your Facebook Timeline http://t.co/AQjZKOnj via @socmedsean
There’s a much easier way. This is you can do it in the simplest way possible:
http://facebookzombie.blogspot.in/2012/05/how-to-remove-trending-articles-from.html
Removing Trending Articles From Your Facebook Timeline http://t.co/OHx0dPZb via @socmedsean
Thank you very much for your insights on this topic.
Removing Trending Articles From Your Facebook Timeline http://t.co/xgWR3uev great how-to via @socmedsean
Removing Trending Articles From Your Facebook Timeline http://t.co/8UOvJbrK via @socmedsean
It’s very telling that we have to go outside Facebook to get help on Facebook.
Thanks
I tried blocking this, but there was no button to update or accept the block. Now what?
You start out by talking about removing Trending Articles – that’s what I’m trying to do. You end up talking about blocking apps that show up when you start to type in the name. Trending Articles NEVER shows up, so you can’t click on it. Is there any way to get rid of it without adding an app?
Hi Penny,
Apologies if I wasn’t clear in the article. Trending Articles are published by Facebook apps. In order to remove the Trending Articles, you have to manually the access that these apps have to publish to your timeline. There isn’t any way (so far) to remove the Trending Articles module and there isn’t any way to globally block all apps from publishing to your timeline.
As I said in the article…it stinks that this is a manual process, but for now it’s the only way that I am aware of. If others have tips/insights on how to remove it, I’d love to hear them.
Cheers!
–Sean
Thank you for this!
Removing Trending Articles From Your Facebook Timeline http://t.co/1bayU5n0 via @socmedsean
Removing Trending Articles From Your Facebook Timeline http://t.co/Je12zznV via @socmedsean
http://t.co/04LwK6GL is a brilliant way to remove the ‘#Trending’ Article apps you have in the middle of your FB #timeline!! EASY MOD
Thanks, Sean.
Ergh, was very displeased when I logged into FB today and saw this.
Another solution: (1) Close your FB account (2) Populate and post in a Google+ account. Much more control and only small list of trending hashtags on the page to suggest possible content.
Some pointers on how to exclude Facebook’s trending articles invasion from your timeline: http://t.co/U1v1H2uC
:3 Thank you so much!
Remove the timeline altogether with Google Chrome and the timeline remover extension.
Tired of stupid Facebook links that go to an app, and not a real story? Just block em – http://t.co/ItLd3qBH
Add this:
http://www.facebook.com##DIVclass=“ogAggregationTrendingList”]
in chrome adblock
it works
ive found a much better and more automated way of doing it.
1) install the safe, free and very highly rated FB Purity browser extension
2) tick the “hide trending articles” option on the FB Purity options screen
and bobs your uncle, all trending article boxes will be hidden from your newsfeed.
as a bonus it also stops the links in those boxes from redirecting via the corresponding Facebook applications, and instead re-routes the links directly to the articles themselves, which saves time and also the annoyance of having every article you read posted to your timeline
it works great for me, and yet another bonus is, if you click on any facebook applications by mistake, FBP adds a block app button directly to any application popup window
I got rid of ALL my apps and it didn’t make any difference.
Can someone please figure out where these things are REALLY coming from?
Great tip! How to remove “Trending Articles” from your Facebook timeline: http://t.co/GkdEcsP3
Removing Trending Articles From Your Facebook Timeline http://t.co/Vy9CcgQ4 via @socmedsean
Get rid of “trending” junk in your facebook feed: http://t.co/T28E63DB
You know what else is annoying, Sean? That stupid damned box on the lower right-hand side of your page that rolls out and forces me to click the “x” to get rid of it…yet it never really goes away! Hypocrite!
Thanks for the feedback, Mina. Sorry you don’t like it. The clicks on it show that others do, however, find it valuable to see other posts. I’d be interested to know what browser you are using so I can troubleshoot why it doesn’t close for you.
–Sean