It’s been a story that’s grabbed headline after headline, tweet after tweet, status update after status update… but as Oscar Pistorius’ murder trial continues into its sixth week, it’s also a story which is hard to avoid if you’re not the kind who is interested in examinations of doors and cricket bats. So how do you de-Oscarify your web experience? We have a few suggestions:
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Mute the over-sharers
Got a friend on Facebook who posts hourly round ups of everything Oscar? Perhaps consider banning them from your Newsfeed until the trial is over. You can either do this by clicking the down arrow (mobile and desktop) in the post’s top right corner and selecting ‘I don’t want to see this’, or visit the friend’s profile page directly. If you go this route, you need to click the ticked ‘following’ box to unfollow them and reduce the amount of their posts Facebook will swing your way (this is less permanent than unfriending, and you can turn it on again later).
Stop the hashtag
If you’ve been avoiding Twitter to get away from the minute-by-minute updates, there is a way to clean it up. If you use Tweetdeck, you simply go to the settings menu, select ‘mute’ and then specific users or terms. In this case, it’s probably safest and easiest to target “#Oscartrial”.
If you use Tweetbot on your iPhone, iPad or Mac, you can also mute either specific users or the general hashtag. Unfortunately, it’s not as simple if you use Twitter on the web. If you’re serious, you can install a browser extension like Silencer (Chrome only), which allows you to target specific hashtags on Facebook or Twitter, which it will then mute. It works seemlessly, quickly sliding away any offending posts. You may have to enter multiple keywords (#OscarTrial, #OscarPistorius, Pistorius) to catch all the commentary though.
Swap Roux for rabbits
The brilliant minds behind Unbaby.me have recently expanded their options, launching Rather, an extension for Chrome and Firefox which allows you to swap out things you don’t want to see with things you like (bunnies, cats, cupcakes, etc). You simply create a list of keywords and choose what replacement content you would like instead, using an Instagram tag (e.g. catsofinstagram) or RSS feed. It also has the ability to mute the content completely, if you’d just like it wiped from Twitter and Facebook altogether (general web functionality is on the way).
Interestingly, Rather also allows you to see what its other users are trying to get away from, like Game of Thrones spoilers and Flappy Bird. You can also toggle between Facebook and Twitter, choosing which platform you’d like to apply the switching on.
