Facebook Testing Ways to Allow Users to Have 5 Profiles Linked to an Account

Meta Platforms will start letting more users create multiple profiles with their Facebook accounts, the company's latest attempt to encourage posting and sharing on its social network.

As part of a test, certain Facebook members will be able to create as many as four additional profiles, and each one won't need to include a person's real name or identity. Users could have one for friends and another for co-workers, for example, each with its own feed. But they will only be able to comment or like another post with one profile.

Meta is stepping up efforts to drive engagement on the world's biggest social network, which has seen growth slow — especially among younger users. Facebook has previously offered multiple profiles but in a more limited fashion. Public figures, for example, have been able to manage multiple profiles for years, and the company has also let users create different identities for dating or college.

Additional profiles are still required to adhere to Facebook's content policies and will tie back to a user's core account, meaning rule violations on one profile will affect the others, the company said.

When launching student profiles in 2020, Meta executives said that users were looking to interact around interests that were more specific than the things they might find with their main social experience. With multiple profiles, Facebook hopes users will create separate identies for their different interests, like gaming, travel or food, according to the spokesperson.

The test won't change how Meta calculates its monthly or daily active user totals, which are reported during earnings. The multiple-profile effort is just a test for now, and includes some of the US users and those in a handful of other countries.

© 2022 Bloomberg L.P.