Facebook recently introduced “Facebook Live”, a live video streaming function that allows Facebook users to broadcast events in real time to their friends and followers. It seems innocuous enough, but by default, it sends notifications to all of someone’s friends whenever they start a stream–which means you end up with a bunch of notifications you don’t want.
This means unlike a photo or a shared post–where you would only be notified if your friend tagged you in some way–you’ll get a notification for any Facebook Live events your friends create, even if you aren’t tagged. On the surface this makes sense: if the event is live then notifying people when it is happening will ensure they see it live. In practice, however, it’s pretty annoying. Thankfully, sweet relief is just a simple settings tweak away.
How to Turn Off Facebook Live Notifications
Like most Facebook annoyances, the fix is pretty easy to apply if you know where they tucked the setting away. While logged into your Facebook account click on the menu arrow located in the upper right corner of the top navigation bar and select “Settings”, as seen below.
Look for the “Notifications” entry on the left hand navigation column. Click it.
Within the “Notifications” menu, click on the “Edit” link next to “On Facebook” at the top of the list.
Scroll down in the rather lengthy notifications menu until you see “Live Videos” near the bottom. Click on the dropdown box beside “Live Videos” and change the default “On” to “All Off”.
The change is immediate and from this point forward you should no longer receive notifications that a live stream has started.
That’s all there is to it. With a little notification menu housekeeping, you can go back to the relative silence and order that proceeded the introduction of Facebook Live.