More big changes are coming to Facebook and Instagram users in Europe. Meta, the parent company of both social networks, said on Monday that it would soon let users unlink their accounts from each other ahead of some big rule changes in the E.U.
In the coming weeks, users in Europe will be notified that they can change their account settings to let them manage their Facebook and Instagram accounts separately, rather than have them linked together. The same goes for Messenger, in which users can set up a standalone account unaffiliated with Facebook.
Users can also choose to use Marketplace without their information from Facebook populating the service, although they’ll have to communicate via email instead of Messenger. For Facebook Gaming, people who choose to unlink their Facebook information will no longer be able to participate in multiplayer games, in-game purchases, and personalized game suggestions, and are limited to single player games.
The move comes ahead of the E.U.’s rollout of the Digital Markets Act, which was intended to improve competition in technology and reduce the power of so-called online gatekeepers such as Meta. The rules will also mandate messenger services like WhatsApp and Messenger (both owned by Meta) to work with other services.
The DMA has created a fork in the experience of many of Big Tech’s biggest services, with users outside of the EU with the traditional version of Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and other services, which are linked together.
European users were already able to pay for a version of its social media networks without ads, with monthly subscriptions starting at EUR9.99 a month for web access. That option launched in November ahead of the DMA rollout.
Image credit: Meta