Get All Access for $5/mo

Hallelujah! Facebook Is Disabling This Majorly Annoying Feature. The social network takes another step to clean up our news feeds.

By Jason Fell

I hate it when I log onto Facebook to find my news feed cluttered with worthless, spammy posts about which song a friend is listening to or the images she pinned to Pinterest. Turns out, I'm not the only one.

Facebook announced today that it is disabling third-party apps from automatically posting to your Facebook news feed. This means there will be no more auto-posts from RunKeeper about your friend running 3.1 miles this morning. Same goes for your annoying cousin who auto-posts anything at all via the Famville app. The idea is to clean up our news feeds from spam and other unwanted information.

From now on, the only posts like these you will see are the ones your friends explicitly share from apps.

Related: Facebook Rolls Out Site-Wide 'Privacy Checkup,' Revamps Default User Settings

"In general, we've found that people engage more with stories that are shared explicitly rather than implicitly, and often feel surprised or confused by stories that are shared implicitly or automatically," Facebook said in a blog post. "Over the past year, the number of implicitly shared stories in news feed has naturally declined. This decline is correlated with how often people mark app posts as spam, which dropped by 75 percent over the same period."

Last week, Facebook made a similar update to Instagram. In the app's updated version, an image posted to Instagram will not be automatically posted to Facebook. Those images will only appear on Facebook if the person posting the image deliberately chooses to share it on Facebook.

I say hallelujah to that.

Related: As Mark Zuckerberg Turns 30, His 10 Best Quotes as CEO

Jason Fell

Entrepreneur Staff

VP, Native Content

Jason Fell is the VP of Native Content, managing the Entrepreneur Partner Studio, which creates dynamic and compelling content for our partners. He previously served as Entrepreneur.com's managing editor and as the technology editor prior to that.

Want to be an Entrepreneur Leadership Network contributor? Apply now to join.

Editor's Pick

Side Hustle

This 20-Year-Old Student Started a Side Hustle With $400 — and It Earned $150,000 Over the Summer

Jacob Shaidle launched his barbecue cleaning business Shaidle Cleaning in 2021 when he was just 15.

Business News

Mark Zuckerberg Is Now the World's Second Richest Person, Behind Elon Musk

Meta's CEO jumped ahead of Jeff Bezos in Bloomberg's rankings this week.

Business News

Meta Says Its New Movie Gen AI Is an Industry First — But a Demo Shows It Isn't Perfect

Movie Gen is too expensive to be released to the public yet, according to Meta's chief product officer.

Business News

Barbara Corcoran Says This Is the One Question to Ask Before Selling Your Home

Barbara Corcoran sold The Corcoran Group in 2001 for $66 million.

Business News

Google Says It Won't Follow Amazon's Lead With a Return-to-Office Mandate — Yet

In a town hall, Google leaders told staff the current hybrid plan will stay in place.