SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — Facebook will be removing personal details from user profile bios starting on Dec. 1, according to reports from Business Insider and other outlets. Personal details that will no longer be included in profile bios include religious views, political views, addresses and the “interested in” field, which indicates a user’s sexual orientation.
Technology news outlet TechCrunch reports a Facebook representative said in a statement the changes are “part of our efforts to make Facebook easier to navigate and use.” The representative told TechCrunch users with these fields will be alerted before they disappear.
The change also represents an even further shift away from profile-based social media formatting, like the original iterations of Facebook and MySpace. These outlets originally centered user activity around personal profiles — remember the Facebook “Wall”? — but feeds increasingly became the norm.
The migration away from personal information on a profile may also signal an increasing hesitancy when it comes to revealing identifiable information online.
The announced changes come on the heels of Meta Inc., Facebook’s parent company, announcing the largest layoffs in its history last week. The company last week, let go of approximately 13% of it workforce, around 11,000 people.