As Election Day draws closer, your Facebook News Feed is likely to become its own sort of political battleground. If you’re contemplating a Facebook hiatus until mid-November, we’ve got an easier solution: simply block political posts from appearing in your feed.

If you have ample time, you can block posts individually, but there’s a much faster solution. Lifehacker suggests installing Social Fixer, a Facebook browser plug-in that includes a variety of functions, including the ability to block content based on specified keywords.

Available for Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera 11+, and Grease Monkey, Social Fixer improves Facebook “by eliminating annoyances.” Once you install Social Fixer, select “minimal setup” (pictured below), which lets you establish your own parameters without filtering everything.



Click the wrench icon at the top of your Facebook page to specify your settings.



Click “Filtering” on the left side of the pop-up window. Under the “Other” column, look for the “Matching Text” field.



AllFacebook recommends entering your keywords like this so your results won’t be case-sensitive: /Romney|Obama|republicans|democrats/

When you’re done, click “Save.” Then sit back and enjoy a politics-free Facebook experience.

One caveat: While we think this is a handy trick, we certainly don’t advocate sticking your head in the sand when it comes to keeping up with current events (including politics) and no matter who you support, please vote. When it comes to Facebook (or other social networks) we love great conversation and well-presented and often differing points of view. What we don’t care for? Disagreement that tends to demonize and Us versus Them mentalities. We’re all in this together.

Politics aside, Social Fixer can come in handy for a myriad other keywords, too, including sports you’re not a fan of, etc. Check it out—you’ll think it’s pretty nifty.

Katy Ryan Schamberger is chief content officer at V3 Integrated Marketing in Kansas City. She is a former newspaper writer and magazine editor. A version of this story first appeared on the V3 blog.

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