EU Users Will Soon Be Able to Unlink Their Facebook and Instagram Accounts

With the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) set to come into effect on March 6, 2024, Meta announced today that it will soon let users in the EU and Switzerland unlink their Facebook and Instagram accounts to stop sharing information between them. The company will also allow Facebook users to stop using their Facebook information in Facebook Messenger, Facebook Marketplace, and Facebook Gaming.

“Over the next few weeks, people will receive notifications that will inform them about their ability to choose whether they would like to share information between our services,” explained Tim Lamb, Director, Competition and Regulatory at Meta. In practice, EU users who have already chosen to connect their Instagram and Facebook accounts in Meta’s Accounts Center will be able to either keep their accounts connected or manage them separately.

Choosing to unlink Facebook and Instagram accounts means that Meta will no longer be able to show personalized content and more relevant ads on Facebook and Instagram based on users’ profile information and activity across their accounts. The company will also stop using information across accounts to suggest friends and accounts to follow.

Facebook users in the EU will also get more choices regarding how they can use Facebook-affiliated services such as Facebook Messenger. It will be possible to use the messaging app with a standalone Messenger account that doesn’t use the information from a user’s existing Facebook account. Doing so will still provide access to Messenger’s core features including private messaging and chat, voice and video calling.

People in the EU using Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Gaming will also be able to do so without using their Facebook information. “People who choose not to use their Facebook information for their Marketplace experience will still be able to browse listings and to buy and sell items, with key differences being that communication between buyers and sellers will be via email instead of Facebook Messenger,” explained Lamb.

As for Facebook Gaming, EU users who choose to play games on the platform without using their Facebook information will only be able to play some single-player games. Multiplayer games, in-game purchases, and personalized game suggestions will require users to share their Facebook information.

Besides Meta, the EU’s DMA will force other big companies including Microsoft, Apple, and Google to make changes to some of their services. Earlier this month, Google also announced that it will allow EU users to unlink some of its services including Google Search, Google Shopping, Google Maps, Google Play, YouTube, and Chrome.