If your Facebook account is overwhelmed with miscellaneous application and event invitations, here's how to quickly and permanently remove them. You probably have a handful of Facebook friends who play endless games of Mafia Wars or Farmville and consistently send you invitations to join them. Or, you may have a friend who works as an event promoter and sends you invites to events halfway across the country that clearly you won’t be attending. Removing these invitation alerts from your account can be tedious and annoying, but there is an easy way to selectively block them. Log into your Facebook account and choose “Privacy Settings” from the drop-down menu at the top. Next, click “Manage Blocking” next to the last option, “Blocked People and Apps.” This will bring you to the settings page for adding friends to your restricted list and blocking Facebook users, as well as blocking app and event invites. To add someone to either of the block lists, type their name in the field and hit enter. When you add someone to the “Block app invites list,” your account will automatically ignore all future app requests from that specific friend or group of friends. The same goes for blocking event invites—once they’re added to the list, you’ll no longer receive event invitations from them. To remove someone from your block list, revisit the page and click the “Unblock” button. You’ll then start receiving app and event invites from them. Facebook Privacy: 11 Settings to Revisit Now Another common complaint from users is News Feed noise from application updates. To block specific applications from cluttering your News Feed, hover over the specific post until a drop-down menu appears. Selecting “Hide story” will remove the individual story from your News Feed, while “Hide all by” and “Unsubscribe from” links will remove the post and prevent all future stories from a person, Page, group, event or app. To review which applications you have hidden from your News Feed, scroll to the very bottom of your News Feed and select “Edit Options.” The apps that appear in the pop-up box are the ones you have already hidden. Click the X next to them if you’d like them to re-appear on your News Feed. Kristin Burnham covers consumer technology, social networking and Web 2.0 for CIO.com. Follow Kristin on Twitter @kmburnham. Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter @CIOonline and on Facebook. Email Kristin at kburnham@cio.com Related content brandpost Sponsored by SAP When natural disasters strike Japan, Ōita University’s EDiSON is ready to act With the technology and assistance of SAP and Zynas Corporation, Ōita University built an emergency-response collaboration tool named EDiSON that helps the Japanese island of Kyushu detect and mitigate natural disasters. By Michael Kure, SAP Contributor Dec 07, 2023 5 mins Digital Transformation brandpost Sponsored by BMC BMC on BMC: How the company enables IT observability with BMC Helix and AIOps The goals: transform an ocean of data and ultimately provide a stellar user experience and maximum value. By Jeff Miller Dec 07, 2023 3 mins IT Leadership brandpost Sponsored by BMC The data deluge: The need for IT Operations observability and strategies for achieving it BMC Helix brings thousands of data points together to create a holistic view of the health of a service. By Jeff Miller Dec 07, 2023 4 mins IT Leadership how-to How to create an effective business continuity plan A business continuity plan outlines procedures and instructions an organization must follow in the face of disaster, whether fire, flood, or cyberattack. Here’s how to create a plan that gives your business the best chance of surviving such an By Mary K. Pratt, Ed Tittel, Kim Lindros Dec 07, 2023 11 mins Small and Medium Business IT Skills Backup and Recovery Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe