Facebook Is Making It Easier for Ex-Lovers to Mute Each Other

The worst part about a nasty breakup is scrubbing the relationship off social media. You have to delete those profile pictures with your ex, you have to switch your relationship status back to "single," and while Facebook can't make it any easier to deal with the eventual realization that your ex has moved on, a new initiative might make it easier to avoid seeing those photos of them looking happy without you.

In the new update, Facebook users who have marked the end of their relationship will be able to opt to "see less" of their former partner's posts in their newsfeeds, as well as "limit what [former partner] will see" of their own posts. Facebook also provides the option to "edit who can see past posts," where users can choose to make tagged posts of them and their former partners private or only visible to the people tagged.

This update follows Facebook's "unfollow" option—introduced in December 2013—which gave users the option to turn off annoying status updates from someone without unfriending them. It also takes cues from Twitter's introduction of the "mute" option, which helped users temporarily prevent tweets (and TV show spoilers) from showing up on their timelines without actually unfollowing or blocking anyone.

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