An organization asks to be able to identify all of its romantic partners on its Facebook profile so as not to further marginalize ethical non-monogamy.
Facebook is one of the most popular social networks on the planet, with several billion users. In fact, the platform must best represent today’s society, in all its many facets. This also happens, it seems, by the representation of the romantic relationship of the users.
An organization asks to be able to identify all its romantic partners on its Facebook profile
An association is today asking Meta to allow Facebook users to list more than one romantic partner on their profile page. L’Organization for Polyamory and Ethical Non-monogamy (OPEN) sent a letter to the American giant a few days ago, in which it said that the current design of the relationship status feature proposed on Facebook is “restrictive” towards people who practice non-monogamy ethics. The organization asks Meta to offer users the option to add all love partners.
“At best, this restriction perpetuates the erasure and marginalization of non-monogamous relationships; at worst, it hurts non-monogamous users by perpetuating social stigma around the validity and authenticity of their relationships,” says OPEN.
So as not to further marginalize ethical non-monogamy
A spokesperson for Meta told The New York Times that the Menlo Park firm is currently reviewing the request and notes that Facebook already allows users to mention on their profile that they are in an “open relationship” with one or more people. The timing of this query may seem odd given the drop in daily users, but it’s in line with the increase in people who just happen to find themselves in non-monogamous relationships. According to data cited by OPEN, about 4-5% of American adults practice ethical non-monogamy.
No one knows if Facebook will decide to accede to this request and make it possible to explicitly identify its multiple romantic partners, but it once again raises the importance of reflecting all aspects of our society.