Tired of annoying posts from a heavy friend? Embarrassed by these posts that your ex might see? Facebook has the solution to make your life easier.
Launched two years ago in the United States, Facebook’s “Take a break” function is finally arriving in France. It allows you to discreetly and temporarily get rid of certain unwelcome friends: your mother, whose request for friendship you did not dare to refuse, or an ex when you go from the status of a couple to a single person, for example. Here’s how to use it.
The function is being deployed on mobile and accessible on PC via this simple link (when connected), thefacebook help or the pop-up that appears periodically. Here is the method to follow on PC.
- When the Take a break window opens, all you have to do is enter the name of the contact you want to distance yourself from. Facebook then gives access to several controls.

- The first zone allows to limit the zones where we will see publications of this contact. In particular, they will disappear from your news feed, and you will no longer be invited to send them messages. Facebook also offers an option via this menu to remove the contact from the list of friends or outright block it.

- The second zone allows you to limit what this contact will see. You can choose to hide your posts and have it only see what you post when you identify it. Again, Facebook gives the option of removing the contact from the list of friends or outright blocking it.

- In a third area, it is possible to examine the publications previously put online to make them more private one by one or more generally. In this case, your identifications in the posts of this contact will be deleted as well as those in which you are both identified. Finally, what you and this person have posted in your respective News Feeds will be deleted.

To return to “normal”, simply return to the default settings. Useful precision displayed at the top of the first window, the person you “remove” will not be warned. No question for Facebook to be at the origin of a conflict.
According to a capture published by a colleague of Figaro on Twitter, the method would be faster on a smartphone. All you have to do is go to the profile of one of your contacts, click on Friends and choose Distance yourself for it to disappear from your news feed and limit what he sees of you.
