Facebook's Gonna Help You Wash That Man Right Out of Your Newsfeed

Breakups are hard enough without having to factor in the possibility of stumbling into your ex online AND sloping around town on a particularly clammy-palmed Sunday evening.

Last night, Facebook's project manager Kelly Winters released the following statement informing all the broken hearted how they can avoid their ex-lovers. It reads: "Starting today, we are testing tools to help people manage how they interact with their former partners on Facebook after a relationship has ended. When people change their relationship status to indicate they are no longer in a relationship, they will be prompted to try these tools. The work is part of our ongoing effort to develop resources for people who may be going through difficult moments in their lives. We hope these tools will help people end relationships on Facebook with greater ease, comfort, and sense of control."

We know what you're thinking, why not just mute or unfriend the fecker? Well, these tools are a lot more subtle than that. According to Us Weekly: "The new features include numerous options, such as not seeing an ex’s updates without having to unfriend or block that person, and also will not suggest the name when tagging or starting new messages."

Also, more importantly, these tools hinder your ex's access to your photos, status updates and videos. As for past posts, these tools will let you untag yourself and limit who can see the posts.

Unfortunately this feature isn't available to us Irish users as yet, it's initially being tested in the US on mobile devices, then - based on that feedback - it'll be rolled out presumably world wide.

We can't decide whether this is a bit creepy or very conscientious of those kind, considerate folk at Facebook. Is this something you'd use?