Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made several reveals during the company’s annual developer conference F8, including the ability for users to clear their history. The move is a response to the Cambridge Analytica scandal and congressional hearings regarding privacy concerns.
Zuckerberg explained in a post about the new feature: “In your web browser, you have a simple way to clear your cookies and history. The idea is a lot of sites need cookies to work, but you should still be able to flush your history whenever you want. We’re building a version of this for Facebook too. It will be a simple control to clear your browsing history on Facebook—what you’ve clicked on, websites you’ve visited, and so on.”
However, clearing your history won’t delete all your information from Facebook’s servers. Information from your personal account will be erased, but your browsing history will be stored—just without your identity attached to it.
Clearing one’s history has some drawbacks, according to Zuckerberg: “To be clear, when you clear your cookies in your browser, it can make parts of your experience worse. You may have to sign back in to every website, and you may have to reconfigure things. The same will be true here. Your Facebook won’t be as good while it relearns your preferences.
“But after going through our systems, this is an example of the kind of control we think you should have. It’s something privacy advocates have been asking for—and we will work with them to make sure we get it right.”
Facebook noted that it will take a few months to build the option. Meanwhile, the company will continue to monitor people’s activities—what posts they like, what stories they click on, and so on.
In another development, Facebook is working on a dating feature for the 200 million people who use the social media platform and are single. Users will be able to set up a profile that won’t be visible to friends and won’t appear in the news feed. People must opt-in to use the feature and will not be matched with anyone they are already friends with, reported CNN.
Those seeking love will be able to browse events and groups and interact with others who share the same interests. Their dating profile will be “unlocked” and shared with others. Users will also be able to use a private messaging inbox that’s not connected to Messenger or WhatsApp apps.
The move puts Facebook in competition with online dating sites such as Tinder, Match.com and OKCupid. It’s scheduled to be released later this year.
