Hey, here's something really stupid and annoying: Facebook abruptly switched everyone's default email address to the @facebook.com account you've never used. Here's how to switch back Facebook's obnoxious overreach right now. So people can actually, you know, contact you.


Remember long, long ago, when Facebook launched a Facebook email system and then nobody used it? That's fine—it was always just an option you were more than welcome to completely ignore. And we did, because we already had Gmail and work inboxes, and didn't need yet another. If our friends wanted to email us, they could just head to our profiles and have options.


Not today! If you go to your profile (or anyone else's), you'll see the @facebook.com email account listed—which just forwards to your Facebook messages inbox—and none of your others. They've all been hidden in a ham-handed attempt to make the Facebook inbox relevant.

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Luckily, it's easy to reverse this foolish move. Go to your Timeline. Click about, under your contact info. Scroll down to "Contact Info" and hit edit. Switch all of the crossed out circle symbols to a full circle for each inbox you want visible on your profile. If you don't want @facebook.com to show up, switch it from a full circle ("Shown on Timeline") to crossed out ("Hidden from Timeline"). This is also a good opportunity to check your privacy settings and make sure your various inboxes are visible only to friendlies. Hit save.

Facebook: don't do this again. [Forbes]

Update: A Facebook spokesperson provided the following non-explanation to Reuters:

As we announced back in April, we've been updating addresses on Facebook to make them consistent across our site. In addition to everyone receiving an address, we're also rolling out a new setting that gives people the choice to decide which addresses they want to show on their timelines. Ever since the launch of timeline, people have had the ability to control what posts they want to show or hide on their own timelines, and today we're extending that to other information they post, starting with the Facebook address.


Facebook, it's probably safe to say that the way we all had our things before was the "choice" we made about "which addresses...show on [our] timelines." This wasn't about choice—in fact, it was the opposite. You chose for us.