Facebook is helping users “curate” an online presence with the ability to bulk archive or trash old posts. The new Manage Activity feature makes it easy to “more accurately reflect who you are today,” rather than remember the emo teenager who shared too many Panic! At The Disco lyrics.
According to the social network, the archive feature is aimed at content “you no longer want others to see,” but that you want to save for yourself. Like a post you made in high school that still tickles you, but may not amuse prospective employers.
Manage Activity also lets users raze their records by sending them directly to the wastebin, where they sit for 30 days before being deleted (unless you manually expunge or restore them first). “This gives you some wiggle room in case you change your mind about deleting old posts,” Facebook said in a news release. The cherry on top: You can view and manage posts all in one place, with the added option of filtering content by specific people or date range. Manage Activity is available initially via the mobile app and Facebook Lite, and will roll out to desktop users “in the future.”
This announcement comes amidst Facebook’s headline-making decision to leave untouched a post by Donald Trump implying looters in the recent Minneapolis protests should be shot. While rival Twitter placed a warning label on the same message, Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg argued that it is a case of free speech.
At least one employee has since resigned from Facebook in objection, saying he “cannot keep excusing” the company’s behavior and claiming that Zuckerberg refuses to enforce content rules when it comes to Trump. The New York Times reported that other workers have also left the firm in protest, but not yet made their departures public.
