Discussing the Case for Allowing Users to Have Separate Identities Within a Singular Facebook Identity

Social media is not structured like real life. For example, your parents are not necessarily going to listen in on your conversations with your gaming buddies in the real world.

Yet social media allows everyone to see what you are saying or doing with your friends, unless you take steps to restrict your account. In order to address this, Meta is testing a feature that will allow users to maintain up to five separate profiles under the same Facebook account.

Coming Soon: One Facebook Account, 5 Profiles

Meta prohibits users from having more than one Facebook account. However, the company is testing a way for users to have more than one profile connected to their account, as first reported byBloomberg .

Users in selected countries will be allowed to create four additional profiles and add them to their original Facebook account, giving them a total of five profiles.

According to statements shared by Facebook spokesperson Leonard Lam to various media outlets, the multiple profiles will allow users to engage with different topics or groups of people under a different identity, with each profile having their own separate feed.

This means fake names will be allowed on the extra profiles as long as the names don’t violate theplatform’s policies prohibiting misrepresentation and impersonating public figures, and don’t include numbers or special characters.

However, the main profile will continue to be under your real name. Certain Facebook features, such asFacebook Dating and the ability to create a page, will only be available to the main profile.

Your overall account will also remain subject to Facebook’s disciplinary procedures should any of the profiles violate Facebook’s rules.

Why Is Facebook Now Allowing Multiple Profiles?

According to Lam, the feature will “help people tailor their experience based on interests and relationships.”

In other words, Facebook users can shut out the social media noise and only consume the content that matters to them with like-minded people.

Facebook is also in a battle to retain users and drive up engagement. In a report fromThe Verge , researchers at Facebook believe that teenage Facebook users will drop 45 percent in 2022 compared to 2019.

In late 2021, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerbergposted that Facebook would re-focus on serving young adults between the ages 18-29 as its “North Star.”

Multiple profiles may help Facebook to stopbleeding young users to rivals like TikTok, who don’t necessarily want their parents, relatives, strangers, or co-workers to see everything they are doing online with their friends.

A Boost to Privacy

This new feature, when fully rolled out, should help users experience Facebook more discreetly, which should be a boost to online privacy.

Facebook hasn’t announced when the test will begin, which countries other than the US have been selected for the test, or when this feature will be globally available.