What happens if you have more than one Facebook account?

Facebook has been thinking of new ways to keep its users engaged with the platform. This time, the social network owned by Mark Zuckerberg announced that it will soon let users have multiple profiles linked to the same account. But is this really necessary?

Table of Contents Show

Do we really need additional Facebook profiles?
Is it legal to have 2 Facebook accounts?
What happens if you have two Facebook accounts?
Can Facebook detect multiple accounts?
Why would someone have several Facebook accounts?

In a press statement (via TechCrunch), Facebook revealed that the new feature will allow people to have different profiles dedicated to different groups of people. For example, the same person will be able to have a profile for personal friends, another for people at work, and another one for family. The company says that creating and switching between profiles will be extremely easy.

To help people tailor their experience based on interests and relationships, we’re testing a way for people to have more than one profile tied to a single Facebook account.

More specifically, users will be able to create up to five different profiles under the same account. The additional profiles don’t have to include the person’s real name, as long as it doesn’t contain any numbers or special characters. However, the user’s main profile must still have the person’s real name.

This is a big move compared to the current Facebook policy, which says that creating more than one personal profile on the social network is against the platform’s standards.

Facebook argues that the new multiple profiles option can also be useful for people to organize their interests, as you can have a specific profile to follow topics in a subject you like. Of course, the additional profiles will also be subject to Facebook’s rules, and breaking them will result in penalties for the entire account.

Do we really need additional Facebook profiles?

Other social networks like Instagram and Twitter already offer ways to separate content that can only be seen by selected users, which is becoming a concern as some people don’t want to have their personal content exposed to school or work colleagues.

In fact, Facebook has already offered a similar feature for years, which lets you create and select groups of friends who can see a specific post, photo, or video. Having multiple profiles makes this process more intuitive and organized, but Facebook’s intentions seem to be more related to the fact that the social network has been losing users to competing platforms like TikTok.

In February, Facebook shares dropped more than 20% due to the company’s “disappointing” results from the previous fiscal quarter. In addition to lower than expected revenue, Facebook also saw a reduction in the number of active users.

Now Facebook has been looking for new ways to make its platform interesting for people again. But while the company wants people creating more Facebook profiles, people seem to be more interested in quitting Facebook for good.

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Facebook says it wants to make it easier to showcase your alter ego on social media.

The social network has a rule that bars users from having multiple Facebook accounts but gives businesses, organizations and public figures the option to create pages. Now Facebook is testing a way for users to create up to five profiles linked to one account. Facebook said that switching between the profiles will require only two taps.

The experiment shows how the site has been trying to evolve beyond just a place to share updates with family and friends. Facebook users could create profiles dedicated to their hobbies, such as cooking, design or travel, the social network said Thursday. They could also have a separate profile where they correspond only with certain family members or friends.

Facebook has been facing more competition from apps such as TikTok, where people share short videos about a variety of topics, including their interests. In February, the social network reported that it lost daily users for the first time in its history, but that number jumped up in the first three months of this year. A total of 1.96 billion people logged in to Facebook daily in the first quarter, the social network said. Facebook has also been encouraging users to join more groups on the platform so they can chat with people who share similar hobbies.

The social network said that Facebook profiles will have to abide by the platform's rules, which prohibit people from posting certain content, such as hate speech and threats of violence. The profiles can't be used to misrepresent a user's identity or impersonate other people. The company declined to provide an estimate of how many users are part of the test.

Is it legal to have 2 Facebook accounts?

It's against the Facebook Community Standards to maintain more than one personal account. If you want to represent your business, organization, brand or product on Facebook, you can use your personal account to create and manage a Page.

What happens if you have two Facebook accounts?

Since it goes against our Community Standards to maintain more than one personal account, we don't have a way to merge multiple accounts. However, you can manually switch to one account and keep the information that's important to you.

Can Facebook detect multiple accounts?

During the registration and later on when you actively use these accounts, Facebook still can detect multiple personal accounts by using digital fingerprints. These are registered every time you're active online and can expose your web browser's identity.

Why would someone have several Facebook accounts?

Someone who wants to keep a wider gap between their different circles (e.g. Work, Family, Friends, Dating) having a different account for each (I believe you can separate out various connections on most social media platforms into some form of group/circle if you want but some people may prefer more of an air gap.)