At the time, CEO Mark Zuckerberg described the tool as working similarly to one’s browser history and a step forward in helping the company repair its image following the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal.
“In your web browser, you have a simple way to clear your cookies and history. The idea is a lot of sites need cookies to work, but you should still be able to flush your history whenever you want. We’re building a version of this for Facebook too. It will be a simple control to clear your browsing history on Facebook — what you’ve clicked on, websites you’ve visited, and so on,” Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook note posted to his personal page. “We’re starting with something a lot of people have asked about recently: the information we see from websites and apps that use Facebook’s ads and analytics tools.”
https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/26/18241985/facebook-clear-history-launch-2019-ad-targeting-privacy-tool
“In your web browser, you have a simple way to clear your cookies and history. The idea is a lot of sites need cookies to work, but you should still be able to flush your history whenever you want. We’re building a version of this for Facebook too. It will be a simple control to clear your browsing history on Facebook — what you’ve clicked on, websites you’ve visited, and so on,” Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook note posted to his personal page. “We’re starting with something a lot of people have asked about recently: the information we see from websites and apps that use Facebook’s ads and analytics tools.”
https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/26/18241985/facebook-clear-history-launch-2019-ad-targeting-privacy-tool