Starting next month, Facebook will no longer allow user data such as “religious views”, “political views”, “addresses” and the “Interested in” information, which indicates a user’s sexual orientation.
The Meta-owned social media platform, which has started to notify users, noted that the changes will go into effect from December 1st.
Social media consultant, Matt Navara was the first to give evidence to this. He said, in a tweet, “Facebook is removing religious views and ‘interested in’ info from profiles from 1 December 2022,” with screenshots to back his evidence.
A whole section of Facebook used to be devoted to users’ preferences, including their religious views, political views, and sexual preference. When people first created their Facebook profiles, it would take them hours to fill out all of the forms. Facebook is now sending messages to people who have filled out these fields, telling them that the information in those fields will be taken off of their profiles.
Emil Vazquez who spoke to TechCrunch tried to explained the reason for the update.
“As part of our efforts to make Facebook easier to navigate and use, we’re removing a handful of profile fields: Interested In, Religious Views, Political Views, and Address,” she said in a statement. “We’re sending notifications to people who have these fields filled out, letting them know these fields will be removed. This change doesn’t affect anyone’s ability to share this information about themselves elsewhere on Facebook.”
This change is a result of Meta’s increased emphasis on public relations. The tech industry as a whole wants the general public to understand the difference between “sensitive” data and “regular” data.
Meta will say, for instance, on Instagram and Facebook that it no longer use sensitive data for advertising; though this adjustment only came about after researchers found major flaws to the system.
This change is just one facet of Facebook’s ongoing effort to revamp its platform, which still contains a number of features that are old-fashioned. It, therefore, makes sense to say that the kind of data that Facebook chooses to erase are ones that aren’t offered by any of the other big social platform.
Instagram and TikTok are just two examples of social media platforms featuring brief bio sections that allow users to introduce themselves without disclosing their political or religious inclinations.
People used to be more likely to want to give more facts about themselves online, but as privacy breaches have come to light, they may no longer feel comfortable doing so.
This comes after Meta said last week that it will be laying off 11,000 workers, or roughly 13% of its total staff. The layoffs will cut across all of its companies including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
The CEO then confirmed this in an announcement it made in a message to the employees on Wednesday of the same week.
