Note: the following article is now obsolete because all users have the timeline upgrade since more than a year ago. This article is maintained online for historical reasons.
Unfortunately for those who want to, there are many evidences indicating that there will be no way to switch back to the old design after you upgrade to Facebook Timeline.
Although for the moment Facebook did not make a clear statement in any of its official pages about how the upgrade would be deployed, and as a consequence there is a lot of false information going around, experienced users know that Facebook upgrades of this size have never been optional.
These are some clues that I can offer about this change not being optional:
- The word Profile is being changed for the word Timeline in Facebook’s Help Center
- In an official Help Center Page, Facebook explains how to get Timeline voluntarily and then it adds, “[o]r you can wait until you see an announcement at the top of your profile.”
- In another Help Center Page, Facebook stated that once you upgrade to Timeline you have seven days to preview it and then “your timeline will be published automatically.”
- There is not known way to disable or remove Facebook Timeline.
As a way to show you how Facebook proceeds when making this kind of changes, I offer you this statement in which Facebook addressed the issue of the previous profile upgrade (done in December 2010) on one of its Help Center pages.
“We’re rolling out the new profile to everyone slowly. If you don’t see it yet and would like to upgrade early, click here. You will not be able to switch back to the old design after upgrading.”
On another page, Facebook addressed this issue more specifically:
“How do I go back to the older version of my profile?
Once you switch to the new version of your profile, you cannot return to the previous version. Upon switching, you will have the option to take a brief tour of the new profile so you can easily locate your favorite features and learn about the new profile features that are available.”
In conclusion, as Facebook uses to implement this kind of changes gradually giving no chance to reverse them, we can expect that soon all users will have the new Timeline instead of the old Profile, and that there will be no way back from it.
Related articles:
How to Use Facebook >> Facebook Account and Timeline >> Is there any way to change back to Profile after you upgrade to Facebook Timeline?
