Early Facebook users would remember its first few features like the Wall, the News Feed and the iconic Poke. Needed a casual way to get someone to notice you? Poke them. Wanted to tease a friend? Poke them. Wanted to talk to someone but didn’t know how? Poke them!
Going down the rabbit hole of browsing your and your friends’ old Facebook posts and timelines, you might come across several ‘Poke War’ instances, or at least I did. A friend pokes you, you poke back, they poke again, and the war has begun.
The beauty of the Poke button, earlier found on the user’s profile itself, was that its meaning and use were ambiguous. The usage of this function was restricted to clicking a button on someone’s profile, which would send that person a virtual notification informing them that they have been Poked by so and so, with an option to Poke Back, to pretty much send back the gesture.
But what happened to this age-old feature over the years? Its popularity seems to have dwindled over time despite an attempt at its revival in 2017. It still exists, but not as a simple button as it used to be. So, how do you Poke someone on Facebook today?
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Poke someone on Facebook from the mobile app on your Android or iOS device
Step 1: Open the app, tap the search icon found in the top right corner and type Poke on the search bar that then appears.
Step 2: You may see several options and pages appear, but be sure to click on the one that takes you to the official Facebook Pokes page.
Step 3: You should immediately see your recent poke activity, including who poked you. Scroll down until you spot the person from your friend list you want to poke. Or type their name in the search bar at the top.
Step 4: Tap Poke next to their name, and that’s that!
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Poke someone on the Facebook website on your desktop
You can follow the steps mentioned above for the website, too.
Alternatively, if you are logged in to the website through your device, type www.facebook.com/pokes in the search bar, and you will be redirected to the Pokes page. You can then choose a person from your friend list and tap Poke or Poke Back if they beat you.
What if I don’t want to be poked
Unfortunately, you cannot stop friends from poking you, but if you do not want to receive a poke from a particular person and just ignoring their pokes isn’t enough, you can block their profile.
If you don’t want friends of friends poking you, you can go to your privacy settings and tweak them to restrict How people find and contact you.
Go to your Facebook profile and tap the profile icon. Select Settings & privacy > Privacy. Edit the controls under the Privacy Settings and Tools tab.
Also read: How to unsnooze someone on Facebook?
