What’s Up, Zuck: Facebook to Remove Religious Views, Political Affiliation, Sexual Preferences from Profiles

Facebook will remove the option for users to share their religious views, political views, and sexual preferences in their profile, a change that will go into effect at the start of December.

Currently, users are able to add information about their political and religious beliefs, as well as their sexual orientation in their “about” tab on Facebook, but the social network is bringing that to an end.

Facebook is removing religious views and ‘interested in’ info from profiles from 1 December 2022 pic.twitter.com/SKjSrtwUwm

— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) November 16, 2022

Facebook said the change is so the platform becomes easier to navigate and use.

Via TechCrunch:

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 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.

While Facebook, one of the first dominant social networks, allowed users to display a wide array of information on their page, newer social networks have opted for a more minimalist approach, with short bios for users. TechCrunch noted that Facebook’s comparatively expansive profiles are a “somewhat outdated” feature.

The overhaul comes as multiple Silicon Valley platforms attempt to refresh their products amid a bleak economic outlook. Last week, Meta, the company which owns Facebook and Instagram, laid off about 11,000 workers — 13 percent of its workforce.

Other platforms are also facing upheaval. Twitter, recently acquired by SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, attempted to radically change the platform’s system of verification earlier this month, offering blue “verified” checkmarks to users that paid $8 a month for its premium “Twitter Blue” service. The change was quickly reversed after a wave of pranksters began impersonating public figures and institutions.

Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.