Facebook to Hide Key User Preferences From Profiles: Will It Affect Platform?

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Facebook to Hide Key User Preferences From Profiles

Facebook will be removing some categories and preferences that users mention about themselves. These preferences have previously been known to be quite polarizing on social media platforms. The social media giant claims it will no longer display certain preferences to make it "easier to navigate". Let's see which categories are being axed and if they will have any impact on users and Facebook.

 

Facebook Sending Notifications About Removal Of Certain Preferences

Meta, Facebook's parent company, has started informing users of the social media platform that it will soon remove some categories of information from user profiles. Social media consultant Matt Navara was one of the first users to spot the notification and posted it on Twitter.

 

As the tweet indicates, Facebook will no longer show sexual preference, religious views, political views, and addresses. The change will come into effect on December 1, 2022. Meta has confirmed the platform will remove the aforementioned elements.

"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. 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."

Will Removing Profile Elements Negatively Impact Users And The Platform?

Facebook and other social media platforms are currently struggling to keep users engaged. Meta is already bracing for a tough year, and to cut costs, laid off about 11,000 employees across multiple departments.

The company has, however, made arrangements for the impacted employees. In addition to the severance pay, employees would also receive, "16 weeks of base pay plus two additional weeks for every year of service, with no cap. The company will cover the cost of healthcare for people and their families for six months," confirmed Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

The removal of such key identification markers would undoubtedly have a negative impact on any targeted advertising platform. However, Meta removed all of these aspects back in January this year. The company had indicated it was removing certain "detailed Targeting options that relate to topics people may perceive as sensitive."

Needless to say, Meta isn't using these details for targeted advertising anyways. However, users could head over to their Facebook profile and remove any preferences they may have entered in the categories before the platform removes the categories.

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