How to retrain the Facebook algorithm
Facebook has spent years increasing the proportion of your feed that comes from accounts you never chose. That is the thing to attack.
Hide suggested posts and snooze the pages behind them, use Feeds to get a chronological view of only who you follow, and adjust Feed preferences. The chronological Feeds view is the single most effective control available.
How to do it
Switch to the Feeds view
Facebook keeps a separate chronological "Feeds" section showing friends and pages you actually follow, in order, with no recommendations. It is the closest thing to an unpersonalised feed the platform offers.
Hide every suggested post
Use the three dots and choose to hide the post, and where offered, tell it you do not want to see suggested content from that source. Do it every time rather than scrolling past.
Snooze or unfollow rather than unfriend
Unfollowing keeps the connection and removes the content, which is usually what people actually want and avoids an awkward conversation.
Go through Feed preferences
Settings has controls for managing favourites, what you have snoozed, and reconnecting with people you unfollowed. Favourites in particular gives you a feed of specific people rather than whatever is engaging.
Stop the hostile clicking
Opening something to be annoyed by it is the main way people train this feed towards content they dislike. Comment sections are the strongest version of this signal.
Suggested content is the actual problem
Most complaints about the Facebook feed are really complaints about recommended posts from pages and groups you have no relationship with. Your friends are not the reason the feed is unpleasant.
That is why the chronological Feeds view works so well: it removes the recommendation layer entirely rather than trying to negotiate with it.
Why it keeps drifting back
The default view resets to the recommended feed. If you want the chronological one you generally have to choose it, which is a deliberate friction on the platform’s part.
Bookmarking or pinning that view, where your device allows it, is worth doing.
Common questions
Can I make the chronological feed the default?
Does hiding a post actually do anything?
Related guides
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