You’ve probably had Graph Search for a while now, and while it’s super useful in finding out various things about your friends, the people in your network, and places that you frequent, it hasn’t been helpful in scouring Timelines for topic-specific updates. Until now. Today, Facebook announced an update that could arguably make Graph Search all the more efficient in the world of social network sleuthing and stalkery: The site’s prominent search bar will now return results for posts.
People can now search for status updates, photo captions, check-ins, and comments. If you’re currently feeling all the feels because Breaking Bad is now over and done with, you can use Graph Search to find topic-specific entries by typing something like “posts about Breaking Bad by my friends” in the field. If you want to learn more about a particular vacation destination you’re thinking of going to or reminisce on old escapades you’ve been to before, you can comb through your News Feed by searching for posts about a city or place, from a certain time. If you want to expunge potentially humiliating Facebook content from your Timeline, you can now employ Graph Search to search your own posts for questionable comments, poorly worded photo captions, and embarrassing check-ins into places you wouldn’t want to go public. You can start off by trying “Posts I commented on” or “My posts from last year.”
Other search possibilities include posts made by specific friends (“Posts by Molly McHugh”) and can be further specified by including a topic (“Posts by Molly McHugh about the Trail Blazers”), a location (“Posts by Molly McHugh about the Trail Blazers from Moda Center”), or a time (“Posts by Molly McHugh about the Trail Blazers from Moda Center in 2012” – sensing a theme?).
If you try using Graph Search to look up posts made by others and are disappointed by meager results, it’s probably because they did a good job in jacking up their privacy settings (which, really, you should do right now) – you will only be able to see content that has been shared with you. Currently, only a small group of people who have Graph Search has the new feature, but the update is gradually rolling out to more users.
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