Updated: The good news is Facebook has decided to remove the Trending box from the user experience. This pretty much renders this post useless, so you can check out the update on the removal of the post here.
In case you haven’t notice, Facebook recently launched an addition to the user-experience called their “Trending” box. The content in this widget providers users with a quick way to see what topics of conversation are trending across the entire Facebook community.
While some see this as a great way to learn about new and timely topics, Facebook failed a bit by giving us no way to turn the feature off or even minimize it.
Other features like the Ticker, Trending Articles and even the Facebook advertisements in our feeds have options to minimize, disable or remove them so it’s possible that Facebook has not added that feature….yet.
In fact, Facebook has made it pretty clear that there isn’t a native way to turn it off on their support page with the following response.
Facebook does not currently allow users to disable the trending box
Some Facebook users, however, are kicking back with a petition on Change.org asking Mark Zuckerburg to at least give users the opportunity to choose whether they want to see it or not.
A response from Facebook, however, has yet to be published.
Luckily, there are a folks out there that just didn’t want to let that Ticker invade their Facebook experience, so here are links to their different solutions. I have tried both, and each worked appropriately in a variety of browsers.
If that Ticker is really ticking you off…give them a try:
Using Adblock Plus to remove the Facebook Ticker by treating it like an advertisement
Using the FB Purity Extension to disable the Facebook Ticker widget
http://www.hacktrix.com/how-to-remove-or-disable-trending-articles-from-facebook-news-feed
So, while you can’t disable it through the native Facebook interface, there is at least a couple options to make it go away. Have another way? Feel free to share it in a comment!
Cheers!
–Sean
Share This Post With A Pin!
Rick
Tuesday 17th of March 2020
Is it possible to make the newly added box with suggested posts on the Homepage of the iPad and iPhone to go away? It is too large and extremely annoying. Facebook needs to give us a way to turn it off or remove it altogether. There is no room for posts on my home page. Photo of example is available upon request. Very frustrated and feeling abused user!
BJ001
Thursday 18th of January 2018
They will not allow you to turn it off. I have asked them many times and they continue to say not to it. This is why I have come to hate Facebook. Many of these trending topics also don't come from people using reputable sources either. They are a lot of clickbait. I am pretty much done with Facebook for the most part,
Chunk Basker
Saturday 26th of December 2015
It's just an ugly box with ugly topics that causes Clutter on your page.
LawAbidingCitizen84
Saturday 12th of December 2015
That is awesome. Never thought about blocking the crap on ad block. Totally works. And ONE!!!!!!!
George West
Friday 10th of July 2015
It is very useful, thank you! I will try to apply this knowledge in practice.