Human connection has long been at the center of Meta’s mission and values. Every day, billions of people around the world use Meta’s Facebook App to both nurture and showcase the connections that matter most to them. The Facebook App provides numerous features to facilitate connection, such as the ability to list family members and relationships on a user’s Profile.

Unfortunately, the design of the “relationship status” feature prevents many users from indicating the connections most important to them. By restricting users to one relationship status (and one tagged partner) on their Profile, non-monogamous individuals are arbitrarily prevented from expressing the full range of their connections on the Facebook App.

Ethical non-monogamy, also referred to as consensual non-monogamy, is a term encompassing a range of relationship practices involving multiple partners, with the full knowledge and consent of everyone involved. In the US, 4-5% of adults currently practice some form of ethical non-monogamy, with one in five adults entering into a consensually non-monogamous relationship at some point in their lives.

According to researchers, as many as 43% of ENM practitioners say they’ve been discriminated against. Those same researchers note that stigma can be reduced by actions including “providing affirming recognition of people’s relationship choices.”

Given the growing prevalence of ethical non-monogamy, we believe that restricting users to listing only one relationship status on their Profile is arbitrary, exclusionary, and contrary to Meta’s core values. At best, this feature restriction perpetuates the erasure and marginalization of non-monogamy; at worst, it harms non-monogamous users by perpetuating social stigmas around the validity and authenticity of non-monogamous relationships.

Meta has long demonstrated a limited recognition of non-monogamous relationships through the inclusion of an “open relationship” option for the “relationship status” field. Further, Meta recognizes that some connection systems (such as families) involve many people, and does not restrict the number of “family members” that can be listed on a user’s Profile. By expanding the recognition of non-monogamous relationships on the Facebook App, Meta will improve users’ ability to present their most authentic self on their Profile.

All users of the Facebook App should have the right to indicate all of their romantic and intimate partners, without limit. We are therefore requesting that Meta take the next step in facilitating inclusive connection on the Facebook App by removing the limit of one “relationship status” on Profiles.

We appreciate your response to this matter, and would welcome the opportunity for further discussion.