You may miss out on Facebook posts, and there is little you can do about it

Martin Brinkmann
May 16, 2014
Updated • Jan 4, 2018
Companies, Facebook
|
15

When a company like Facebook believes that it knows better which updates you want to see than you, and does not make it easy to display all posts of friends on Facebook at the same time, then there is something inherently wrong with that system.

Whenever you visit the social networking company Facebook, be it on the web directly or in a mobile app of your choice, you are presented with a selection of top stories only.

Top stories are selected by Facebook automatically in the background based on factors such as popularity. If a story gets comments and others don't, chance is that the story with comments will become a top story.

The problem here is that Facebook does not display the other updates at all on the page. And if you don't know that, or cannot find a way to display updates in chronological order, you may miss out on a lot of posts and updates on the site.

While it is possible to switch to most recent on the Facebook website, it won't stay the default option forever.

facebook top stories

I have not found out when the setting gets reverted, deleting cookies or signing out does not seem to trigger it all the time.

To change the display for the session, do the following:

  1. Open Facebook and log in to your account.
  2. Click on the small down arrow next to news feed located at the top left of the screen and select most recent instead of top stories.
  3. Et voila, all updates are now displayed to you, not only those that Facebook's algorithm believes are of greater interest.

What many Facebook users don't know is that there is another option that works all the time. Instead of opening facebook.com, try loading https://www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr directly.

This loads the news feed in chronological order (aka most recent mode) automatically when you do so.

As mentioned earlier, top stories are displayed on mobile devices as well by default. It is even less obvious on those devices how to switch to most recent stories instead.

On Android, you need to tap on the Hamburger button (the three bars) at the top, scroll all the way down until you find most recent under feeds.

facebook recent news

This preference does not stick as well. As is the case on the website it will revert eventually to top stories only. Unlike on the website where you can use the url posted above to display updates in chronological order, it is not possible to do the same when you are using the application.

Summary
You may miss out on Facebook posts, and there is little you can do about it
Article Name
You may miss out on Facebook posts, and there is little you can do about it
Description
Facebook displays top stories on your feed when you visit the website and does not provide you with a permanent option to change that to an all updates option.
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Comments

  1. The Dark Lady said on July 9, 2023 at 11:19 am
    Reply

    Martin, I would appreciate that you do not censor this post, as it’s informative writing.

    Onur, there is a misleading statement “[…] GIFs are animated images …”. No, obviously you don’t seem to have take much notice of what you were told back in March regarding; Graphics Interchange Format (GIF).

    For example, https://www.ghacks.net/2023/03/31/whats-gif-explanation-and-how-to-use-it/#comment-4562919 (if you had read my replies within that thread, you might have learnt something useful). I even mentioned, “GIF intrinsically supports animated images (GIF89a)”.

    You linked to said article, [Related: …] within this article, but have somehow failed to take onboard what support you were given by several more knowledgeable people.

    If you used AI to help write this article, it has failed miserably.

  2. KeZa said on August 17, 2023 at 5:58 pm
    Reply

    AI is stupid, and it will not get any better if we really know how this all works. Prove me wrong.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IYl1sTIOHI

  3. Database failure said on August 18, 2023 at 5:21 pm
    Reply

    Martin, [#comment-4569908] is only meant to be in: [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/07/09/how-to-send-gifs-on-iphone-two-different-ways/]. Whereas it appears duplicated in several recent random low-quality non relevant articles.

    Obviously it [#comment-4569908] was posted: 9 July 2023. Long before this thread even existed… your database is falling over. Those comments are supposed to have unique ID values. It shouldn’t be possible to duplicate the post ID, if the database had referential integrity.

  4. Howard Pearce said on August 25, 2023 at 12:24 pm
    Reply

    Don’t tell me!

    Ghacks wants the state to step in for STATE-MANDATED associations to save jobs!!!

    Bring in the dictatorship!!!

    And screw Rreedom of Association – too radical for Ghacks maybe

  5. Howard Allan Pearce said on September 7, 2023 at 9:13 am
    Reply

    GateKeeper ?

    That’s called “appointing” businesses to do the state’s dirty work!!!!!

    But the article says itself that those appointed were not happy – implying they had not choice!!!!!!

  6. owl said on September 7, 2023 at 9:50 am
    Reply

    @The Dark Lady,
    @KeZa,
    @Database failure,
    @Howard Pearce,
    @Howard Allan Pearce,

    Note: I replaced the quoted URI scheme: https:// with “>>” and posted.

    The current ghacks.net is owned by “Softonic International S.A.” (sold by Martin in October 2019), and due to the fate of M&A, ghacks.net has changed in quality.
    >> ghacks.net/2023/09/02/microsoft-is-removing-wordpad-from-windows/#comment-4573130
    Many Authors of bloggers and advertisers certified by Softonic have joined the site, and the site is full of articles aimed at advertising and clickbait.
    >> ghacks.net/2023/08/31/in-windows-11-the-line-between-legitimate-and-adware-becomes-increasingly-blurred/#comment-4573117
    As it stands, except for articles by Martin Brinkmann, Mike Turcotte, and Ashwin, they are low quality, unhelpful, and even vicious. It is better not to read those articles.
    How to display only articles by a specific author:
    Added line to My filters in uBlock Origin: ghacks.net##.hentry,.home-posts,.home-category-post:not(:has-text(/Martin Brinkmann|Mike Turcotte|Ashwin/))
    >> ghacks.net/2023/09/01/windows-11-development-overview-of-the-august-2023-changes/#comment-4573033

    By the way, if you use an RSS reader, you can track exactly where your comments are (I’m an iPad user, so I use “Feedly Classic”, but for Windows I prefer the desktop app “RSS Guard”).
    RSS Guard: Feed reader which supports RSS/ATOM/JSON and many web-based feed services.
    >> github.com/martinrotter/rssguard#readme

  7. Anonymous said on September 14, 2023 at 6:41 pm
    Reply

    We all live in digital surveillance glass houses under scrutiny of evil people because of people like Musk. It’s only fair that he takes his turn.

  8. Anonymous said on September 18, 2023 at 1:31 pm
    Reply

    “Operating systems will be required to let the user choose the browser, virtual assistant and search engine of their choice. Microsoft cannot force users to use Bing or Edge. Apple will have to open up its iOS operating system to allow third-party app stores, aka allow sideloading of apps. Google, on the other hand, will need to provide users with the ability to uninstall preloaded apps (bloatware) from Android devices. Online services will need to allow users to unsubscribe from their platform easily. Gatekeepers need to provide interoperability with third-parties that offer similar services.”

    Wonderful ! Let’s hope they’ll comply with that law more than they are doing with the GDPR.

  9. sean conner said on September 27, 2023 at 6:21 am
    Reply

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