The 2-Minute Facebook Hack To Avoid Getting Bombarded By Politicians

By Scott Detrow

Published October 10, 2015 at 9:18 AM EDT

Want to follow what the presidential candidates are saying on Facebook, but not quite ready to turn over your news feed to pleas for money, stilted memes and behind-the-scenes pics from Iowa and New Hampshire?

Interested in hearing more from, say, Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, but a little hesitant to declare to your Facebook friends that you "like" them?

There's a hack for that!

Well, not quite a hack, but a little-known feature that allows you to keep tabs on candidates — or any other public Facebook page, for that matter — without having to like them or see them in your news feed.

It's called an interest list.

The option has been around for several years, but it's not well-publicized. It allows you to curate a list of pages to follow, which then lives on the left-hand bookmarks column of your home page. When you want to see what the candidates are up to, you can click on the list. Otherwise, you can focus your attention on the wedding and baby pictures that occupy the rest of your news feed.

Here's how to create one, according to Facebook:

Scroll down to Interests on the left side of your News Feed. Hover over Interests and click More.

Click Add Interests.

Click Create List.

Search for the people or Pages you want to add to your list using the search box at the top of the page, or use the categories on the left to browse.

After you've selected the things you want to include on your list, click Next.

Pick a name for your list.

Select aprivacy setting. Choose Public if you want others to be able to follow the list you've created.

Click Done.

If you prefer Twitter, we've created a list of the presidential candidates you can follow here.

And there you go! The 2016 campaign is now at least a little more contained within your news feed. (And hey, it creates a bit more room for you to follow NPR Politics ...)