Guess what, we have news of yet another Meta removal for you all, but this may not be as big as its other projects. Meta has recently begun informing Facebook users that it’s removing several profile information fields to better streamline the platform, making it ‘easier to navigate’. We can’t say for certain whether or not it’ll leave a huge impact.
Adios, Extras…
Based on this notification, shared by none other than Social Media expert Matt Navarra, Meta is sending out notifications to users who’ve filled in the following fields to let them know that they’re soon being removed:
- Interested in (which is related to dating preferences)
- Religion
- Political Views
- Address
Meta has confirmed that it’s removing these elements, explaining that:
“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.”
So, if you’re like me who has entered this information before, it’ll soon be erased and will no longer be visible to visitors, not that that should matter much. Will it impact ad targeting in any way? Well, let’s take the religious belief field for example – if people can’t list their religious affiliation, then you won’t be able to use that as an ad element. To be clear, Meta already removed these aspects as ad elements as part of its data options revisions in November of 2021.
Meta implemented that change to better align with Europe’s GDPR, which prohibits the targeting of users based on such unless they’ve individually provided explicit consent. The Law came about in 2018, and Meta had been railing against it, with Meta eventually conceding because of too much opposition from changing global and consumer shifts – people started wanting more privacy online. So, if Meta can’t use these fields anyway, then what’s the point of having them all, right?
In essence, Meta no longer needs you to share this information on your profile, while each of these elements could also lead to discrimination and harm simply by existing. So, it seems better to just get rid of them.
The Wrap
That’s pretty much it. Again, nothing major, and the impact is close-to-negligible if totally non-existent. Basically, it’s just Meta saying that it’s taking away these fields since they’re more likely to cause harm and that they don’t really serve any other purpose. At best, Facebook, and thereby Meta, is just giving us a big ‘Heads up’.
Sources