Facebook just removed a feature most users probably didn’t know they had.
Up until Monday evening, Facebook users could view the entirety of their news feed by clicking on a secret link.
The “All” link made it possible for Facebook users to see an unfiltered version of their feed with updates from every friend and every page they followed.
The glitch was first spotted by Tom Waddington, a Scottish designer and developer who wrote about his discovery on his personal blog.
“Have you ever wondered which pages you like are posting content you haven’t seen?” Waddington wrote Monday. “There’s a special link to see everything in your Facebook news feed—hidden posts from pages you haven’t interacted with, alongside friendship stories and other units that are shown less often.”
For those relishing the prospect of overdosing on Facebook updates, temper your excitement. TechCrunch reported that the social network disabled the link around 5:30 p.m. Eastern on Monday.
The “All” link was a remnant from the days when Facebook didn’t filter out content that it thought wouldn’t be engaging to its users. According to a company spokesperson it was “an old link that allows you to access your news feed operating on an earlier version of our ranking algorithm.”
Pagerank, the aforementioned ranking algorithm has, been recently criticized by the likes of the Dangerous Minds blog and power user George Takei for keeping their content from reaching the majority of their fan base.
The Daily Dot reached out to Facebook seeking further comment on their decision to pull the link but have not heard back as of publication time.
Photo via Scott Beale/Flickr
