【2023 Archives】

Everything023 Archivesnot OK, but with Facebook's new Keyword Snooze feature you don't have to know that.

Going online is a real drag these days, what with all the news of children in cages and just the general national disaster that is the Trump administration. But what if I told you that your friendly international advertising and surveillance conglomerate Facebook has a way for you to permanently stick your head in the sand?

It's called Keyword Snooze, and in a blog post announcing the new tool Facebook makes clear that it will provide the healing salve you need to pretend things in this country aren't irrevocably fucked.

"To prevent future heartache, we’re beginning to test the next addition to our suite of News Feed controls, Keyword Snooze," the company helpfully explains.

While ostensibly targeted at preventing spoilers for the latest Ant Manmovie or whatever, it's pretty clear that the true use of Snooze will be avoiding the Facebook posts in your News Feed containing phrases like "tender age" and "Supreme Court."

Here's how it works: "Located in a post’s upper right-hand menu in News Feed, the feature gives people the option to temporarily hide posts by keywords, which are pulled directly from text in that post," Facebook tells us. "If you choose to 'snooze' a keyword, you won’t see posts in your News Feed containing that exact word or phrase from any person, Page or Group for 30 days."

Sure, the so-called snooze only lasts 30 days, but it appears simple enough to recommit to your willful ignorance once every month.

Now, are we endorsing a strategy of just blindly going about your business while the world burns around you? Of course not. In fact, just the opposite — you should instead get very angry. And, once you've done that, stay angry.

But that's not what Keyword Snooze is here for.

Tech companies like Facebook always promised to make the world a better place. Having so clearly failed at that lofty goal, Keyword Snooze goes ahead and accomplishes the next best thing — making it easier to pretend those companies succeeded.

Because if a child screams in a cage but everyone's muted your Facebook post about it did the kid ever make a sound? Facebook has finally answered that age-old question. Too bad it's with a resounding shrug.