In October 2022, Facebook reported that it has 1.980 million users daily assets. This means that many people have a good part of their life, activities and memories hosted on the social network of mark zuckerberg. In a few days, some of that data will be gone forever from the platform: Goal announced that it will delete information from all of its users’ accounts.
Part of the charm of Facebook, in its early days, was that you could expose your tastes, preferences, lifestyle and personality in detail, so that your friends and contacts got to know you better. However, over the years, both Internet users and the company have seen that it is not a good idea (or necessary) to reveal so much.
A few days ago, the company began sending messages to its users warning about the change, which will be implemented on December 1. Although the update will be carried out automatically in all accounts, the social network only notified those who will be directly affected, that is, those who have data in those sections of the profile.
What information will Facebook remove from your profile?
The platform will remove some fields that have become controversial, specifically those related to the political, religious and sexual orientation of the user.
The first to report the change was the social media consultant matt navarrawho shared images of the notice received by those who completed those fields.
A Facebook spokesperson said the reason behind the change is to make the social network simpler and more intuitive.
“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,” the spokesperson told TechCrunch in an email.
Facebook clarifies that the only difference is that these fields will no longer appear, but people will be able to continue sharing their preferences on the social network. They underline that the rest of the information will remain intact in the profilesincluding your basic and contact information.
“We are sending notifications to people who filled out these fields, informing them that they will be removed. This change does not affect anyone’s ability to share this information about themselves elsewhere on Facebook,” the company said.
Is sharing too much outdated and dangerous?
Facebook is the oldest active social network currently, despite the fact that it is in full crisis. In recent months, it has registered multi-million dollar losses and massive layoffs, as well as rumors that Mark Zuckerberg could resign as CEO of Meta.
Today it is the only one that still allows such information to be shared, apart from the dating apps, where it can be very relevant. For example, these fields do not appear in instagramalso owned by Meta, nor in TikTokthe favorite platform of the Generation Z. In both only very simple biographies are shown, with the most basic data and without going into details.
The portal points out that the users themselves have stopped using these sections, as they are more aware of the risks, such as data leakage. They also know that their information, once on the internet, can be used for commercial, advertising and statistical purposes, shared with other companies or, in the worst cases, used to harm them.
How to download a copy of your information on Facebook?
Those who wish to do so can back up all their data by downloading a copy of their profile. As detailed on their official site, all they have to do is:
- Click on your profile photo and enter ‘Settings and privacy’ and go to the ‘Settings’ section.
- Enter to ‘Your Facebook information’go to ‘Download profile information’ and click ‘Watch’.
- Select the data categories you want to add to your request. You can also limit the download to specific dates or periods, as well as the quality of the photos, videos and multimedia files.
- Click on ‘Create file’ to confirm the request.
- This will appear as ‘pending’ in the section copies available of the tool Download your information. It may take several days for you to receive a notification that you can save the file.
Whether or not you have the fields that Facebook is going to disappear enabled, it is always convenient to have a backup of our account. Just think, if one day you are a victim of hacking, you cannot access your profile or they simply decide to eliminate other fields from the platform, How much priceless information, photos, videos and memories would you lose?
Editorial Team The editorial team of EMPRENDEDOR.com, which for more than 27 years has worked to promote entrepreneurship.