Facebook does away with 'unlike' option in new News Feed

If you’re already on the revamped News Feed of Facebook, there is some bad news. Facebook has done away with the ability to unlike a page from your News Feed. "Unlike"ing pages you were following earlier is all set to become a tedious process with Facebook’s new News Feed.

An Inside Facebook report noted that Facebook has removed the option to unlike a page you previously followed from within the News Feed. Earlier, if you hid a story from your timeline, Facebook would offer you the option to unlike the page altogether. While the flow remains the same with the new News Feed, Facebook does not display the option of unliking the page completely.

Unliking is a tough job now (Image Credit: Inside Facebook)

To completely unsubscribe yourself and unlike a page, you will have to follow a more tedious course of heading to the page and unliking it by hovering on the “Liked” button. There is another way to unlike the page from the News Feed too. You need to hover your mouse over the name of the page to open up the information box that is almost like a mini page in itself. Then you need to access the unlike option from the “Liked” button, quite like you would on the page.

The move to remove the unlike option is going to benefit companies, advertisers and Facebook itself. Now, even while a fan might end up hiding a story, he will be less motivated to go over to a page to unlike it and halt further updates. Earlier, while the option was right in front of his eyes, he would click on the unlike option at once. Thus, while the page stands to lose its reach thanks to hidden posts, it will still hold on to the number of likes on it.

Advertisers will stand to benefit too as Facebook will still be able to hold on to precious data about users’ likes and dislikes and share it with them. Although this is a smart move as far as revenue generation is concerned, this redesign decision is bound to irk some Facebook users even as the new News Feed rolls out slowly to users.

Facebook announced the new News Feed earlier last week to address growing user complaints that the existing feed was a jumble of irrelevant posts. The new News Feed is clutter free and puts more emphasis on visuals.

Co-founder Mark Zuckerberg pointed out during the launch of the News Feed that the new look is geared for a more mobile world. Facebook will now look the same on both PCs and smartphones, as all the features and UI are consistent irrespective of which device you use. The updated app is likely to hit iOS before the Google Play Store.

The revamped News Feed not only puts more emphasis on larger images in photo uploads and links, but also introduces a brand new user interface that does away with the dull looking navigation bar on the left.

Read more about the News Feed revamp here.