Are you still using Facebook? Someone has to be because parent company Meta has rolled out a fairly chunky change for the social media platform. Now you can have up to four extra profiles attached to your main Facebook account. The reasons you would do that are up to you but Meta’s got a few suggestions.
Before we get into that, a little bit about how the feature works. Users can create a new alias that spins off the main profile. When you’re finished making one (or four), it’s possible to switch between each without logging out. If you’ve ever swapped between a business and personal Facebook account, you’ll know how it works. If you haven’t… well, you’re about to find out.
What’s the point?
The ability to create multiple profiles has been in testing for a while. Meta says the move was driven by feedback that “…clearer organization of friends, groups, and interests helps them feel freer to engage with the audience they believe is most relevant”. In other words, people want one Facebook account for sports, one for anime, one for family, and one for… whatever.
Some features of the social media platform won’t be available to alias profiles. If you’re fond of using Facebook Marketplace, Dating, Professional Mode, or giving Zuckerberg money, you’ll have to do all of those via the main profile. Messenger will be available to alternative profiles but, as with the restricted features, it looks like Meta is keeping the door open for enabling or restricting features in future. It depends how folks behave, we supposed. If you screw it up for everyone else by using your multiple profiles to be a troll… well, this is why we can’t have nice things.
The feature started rolling out globally last week, a process that will apparently take several months to finish. Once it’s enabled for you, a popup will offer instructions for how to create more targeted profiles (which Zuckerberg totally won’t use to create more targeted ads for you).
