Facebook's Nearby Friends feature, which started rolling out way back in 2014, is bidding goodbye this May. Its other location-based functions are also leaving the social media platform.
According to a recent report by 9to5Mac, the Mark Zuckerberg-owned social media has started informing its users that it is already ditching Nearby Friends and other location-based features before this month ends.
In this photo illustration, a person looks at a smart phone with a Facebook App logo displayed on the background, on August 17, 2021, in Arlington, Virginia.
The news outlet bared that both Android and iPhone users are getting a notification on their Facebook apps about the nearing shut down of Nearby Friends.
Facebook's Nearby Friends
The feature aptly called Nearby Friends began rolling out to Facebook users on both iOS and Android way back on April 18, 2014, according to a report by Tech Crunch.
A lot has changed since then - TikTok was not a huge thing back then, and the parent firm of Facebook has yet to rebrand as Meta.
Tech Crunch said in its story that Nearby Friends allows Facebook users to meet up with their friends who are coincidentally near them.
When it first launched, it surely stirred some privacy concerns. But despite that, it stayed on the Facebook app for a couple of years. It is only officially shutting down this 2022.
Facebook made it clear during the debut of Nearby Friends that it was actually an optional feature that its users could manually opt to enable if they want to share their location with their friends.
Facebook's Nearby Friends Shut Down
A couple of years after Facebook introduced its optional meet-up feature, it is now ditching Nearby Friends by the end of May.
Facebook also told its users that other location-based features, such as Location History, Time Alerts, and Background Location, are also "going away soon."
In this illustration photo taken in Los Angeles on October 28, 2021, a person watches on a smartphone Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveil the META logo.
The social media giant said in its notifications to users that "Nearby Friends and Weather alerts will no longer be available after May 31, 2022."
On top of that, the Zuckerberg social media platform also disclosed that the location history of its users, which was used to create maps of what they have visited in the past years, will be available for download on Aug. 1, 2022.
It comes as Facebook said that it will start purging all of these location data from its users after making it available for download.
It is interesting to point out that Facebook did not provide any explanation as to why it has decided to pull the plug on its Nearby Friends and other location-based features.
However, the social media giant clarified that it will still collect the location data of its users "for other experiences."
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