Facebook Is Testing An Algorithm To Protect You From Spoilers

Soon, you'll be able to mute more than just your uncle's bad political opinions. Facebook has begun testing out an algorithm that will allow the social media giant to protect you from spoilers.

The website is rolling out a new feature for a small percentage of test users that would allow them to curate their News Feeds based on keywords. Which means you can stop yelling at us about the Avengers: Infinity War ending.

Five months after reports surfaced that Facebook was planning to introduce a spoiler filter to its News Feed, that technology has become a reality. Facebook has announced that it is testing out a new algorithm that would allow users to temporarily block out posts and articles based on a keyword.

The tech is called "Keyword Snooze," according to Facebook's News Feed Product Manager, Shruthi Muraleedharan. Similar to Twitter's muting option or blacklist options on other websites, "Keyword Snooze" is a feature that will filter posts based on the text in that post. So if, for example, you wanted to avoid any spoilers about what took place at the end of Avengers Infinity War, you could simply block out the term "Avengers Infinity War ending" and all posts or headlines that include the term.

This is what it would look like (via Facebook):

Muraleedharan says that the option is only for 30 days, but as Facebook tests out the feature, it could likely expand soon. Here's how it works:

Located in a post's upper right-hand menu in News Feed, the feature gives people the option to temporarily hide posts by keywords, which are pulled directly from text in that post. If you choose to "snooze" a keyword, you won't see posts in your News Feed containing that exact word or phrase from any person, Page or Group for 30 days. In other words, fewer spoilers.

"Keyword Snooze" will be slowly rolled out over the next week and, if it's successful, will go wide in the future. But keep an eye out for the feature when you log into Facebook next: you could be one of the first users to test it out.

It's too bad Westworld is done so that this feature couldn't be tested in the heat of Peak TV spoiler season. At least there will always be someone out there who hasn't seen Infinity War yet.