Facebook tests 'break-up' tool to help manage content of former lovers

Avoiding your ex on social media is the toughest thing to do. You either delete and block them to get over them or, in many cases, continue to stalk them and get totally hung up on them. But what if you decide to "take a break" from them just like in real life and still maintain them on your social profiles?

Well, Facebook can soon do that for you. The networking site on Thursday (19 November) through its blog announced that it was testing tools to help people manage how they interact with their former partners on Facebook after a relationship has ended. The new "Take a Break" tool will be tested with a few users starting today [20 November].

The tool, as announced by Facebook, will include some interesting features. Here is a look at them:

• View less of a former partner's name and profile picture around Facebook without having to unfriend or block him/her;

• Your former partner's posts won't show up in the News Feed and his/her name won't be suggested when people write a new message or tag friends in photos;

• One can limit the photos, videos or status updates that a former partner can see. This can currently also be done by the custom feature but the new tool will ease the process;

• Edit who can see their past posts with a former partner and untag themselves from posts with that person. Your ex will never be notified that you're making these changes. It is one of the first things one checks if one has been unfriended or blocked after the break-up.

If you live in the US and want to see how this works, try changing your relationship status. The testing phase is limited to US mobile app users for now and will gradually spread if the company finds it successful. Currently, when one changes one's relationship status on Facebook, it just gives the option to choose one's audience for the notification and determine whether one wants to make it a live event or not.

Last week the social media was abuzz with The Breakup Shop offering the unique service of breaking up. The service assures that it will "handle the messy work of the break up" via text (£6, $10), phone call (£19, $29) or letter (£19.60, $30).