I got nearly the same notification, except mine defaulted to off, it said "This setting is off, but you can turn it on any time".
My guess is that they based the setting on another setting. For example there was some photo tagging thing added years ago, and I disabled that. Most of my timeline and tagging settings are set to Custom or require review.
Can't find it in my Facebook settings - can you give us a pointer where to find these settings in Facebooks cesspool of anti-patterns they like to promote as the "settings" page...
There's a "Face Recognition" tab that's new to the settings page since the last time I went through disabling things. For me, it shows up on the left side right under "Language".
For me I had a related setting under the "Timeline and Tagging" tab (set to "No One"), there was no "Face Recognition" tab... until I click "Go to Settings" in the notification, then the "Face Recognition" tab appeared, and the similar setting was removed from "Timeline and Tagging".
It would appear to be the case - I don't see it, but others in Europe do... its maybe also related to local laws (Austria) disallowing such things, and if that is the case I sure am thankful.
No idea. I joined early and didn't really think through some of the privacy ramifications until 2008 or even 2010. Then there are the friends who don't think about them at all, and I assume that Facebook puts some stock in their tags, even if I delete them later.
Same here. Defaulted to off. They could be running an experiment. Roll it out to X percent of people, default half on and see who turns it off, default half off and see who turns it on.
Facebook is notorious for doing A/B testing and feature flipping. It's very possible they are testing defaulting to on vs defaulting to off and measuring how many people turn it off and how many turn it on after the notification.
Echoing this, mine was defaulted to off. I imagine it's correlated to another privacy setting, so for those of us who keep it fairly locked down it will likely default off, although it's entirely possible that it's an A/B test and everyone should be sure to check the setting (Hamburger -> Account Settings -> Face Recognition Settings)
Just adding my name to the rolls of people for whom the setting defaulted to "off." Facebook loves to A/B test these things, which you'd think people would applaud.
I think people are overly hard on Facebook honestly, such that they assume ill intent with everything including assuming it's just default on for everyone.
My guess is that they based the setting on another setting. For example there was some photo tagging thing added years ago, and I disabled that. Most of my timeline and tagging settings are set to Custom or require review.