CREATING AN "UNEXPURGATED NEWSFEED" IN FACEBOOK

I got tired of Facebook deciding what will appear in my newsfeed. (What was I missing that friends were posting, but that the FB algorithms decided not to show me?) So I simply created a list that amounts to an unexpurgated newsfeed (showing all postings from all friends).

If you'd like to try this too, just create a Facebook "list" that includes all of your friends. I only know how to do this via the web browser interface to Facebook (although I suppose it can also be done via one of the mobile FB apps, as well).

The following instructions worked as of August 29, 2014. Facebook often changes their interfaces, so these instructions may no longer apply at any time after (or even before) I finish writing this.

To create any list, bring up Facebook in a browser, and hover over the "FRIENDS" section over on the left. This causes a link titled "More" to appear to the right of the "FRIENDS" label.

Click on "More" and up will pop a "Friends" box in the middle of the frame that has a button labeled "+ Create List".

Click it to create a new list, and call it whatever you like (e.g., "All Friends" or "Unexpurgated Newsfeed" or whatever). Do NOT enter any friends in this window. Just click the blue "Create" button after you've given the list a name.

This takes you to a big, mostly blank window with a big "Add Friends to List" button. CLICK IT!!

This takes you to a window with pictures of ALL of your friends, listed in alphabetical order by their first names. Click on each picture to select it (which will make a little blue box with a white check appear in the bottom right corner of each picture). Scroll down through all the pictures and click each one. (Sorry, there is apparently no "select all" button available!)

After you click finish on this last window, it will take you back to the big blank window that says "No posts to show" and the "Add Friends to List" button, which might fool you into thinking that the whole thing didn't work! But if you refresh (reload) this page in your browser, you'll see your new Unexpurgated Feed list appear before your eyes, with every one of all of your friends' most recent postings at the top.

After you complete this process, the name of your new list should begin appearing over on the left of your main Facebook page, as one of the options that may be clicked on in the "Friends" section. However, I noticed that it took a few minutes for my new list to start appearing there right after I created it.

For ease of access, I also placed the link to my "Unexpurgated Feed" list in my browser's bookmark bar.

Give it a try if you want to see which of your friends' postings the FB algorithms are stripping out of your newsfeed!