By opening the Facebook app on your smartphone you may have already received the notification with which the social network communicates that, starting from May 31, 2022, some functions that exploited the data related to the location of the devices will be removed.
In detail, the affected features are “Friends nearby” and weather alerts: both exploited the user’s location. In addition, Facebook also makes it known that the location history and location in the background will not only no longer be collected starting from the date indicated, but also the related information stored so far will soon be permanently deleted:
Information you’ve shared that has been used for these experiences, including location history and background localization, will no longer be collected after May 31, 2022, even if you’ve enabled it previously.
Those who want to download their location history, can do so by August 1, 2022: later the data will be deleted and will no longer be recoverable. All this does not mean, of course, that the Facebook app does not continue to collect information relating to the location of users if they have granted the relevant permission.
To check this, simply go to the settings of your device, where you can revoke the permissions if you wish.
ANACHRONISTIC FUNCTIONS
Zuckerberg’s social network has not specified what are the reasons behind the removal of these functions. “Friends nearby”, presented in 2014 and introduced in Europe in 2015, in all probability is now judged an anachronistic option, outdated by the times and far from the use and role that Facebook has assumed in recent years, far from the centrality it held at the time, especially with regard to the new generations.
And even the information related to the weather is redundant: the focus of the company, at the moment, is the development of the metaverse, together with the push for the Reels, the short TikTok-style videos that have eclipsed the audio projects such as podcasts and Soundbites, now abandoned.
