Messenger thinks every one should be my favorite person

Hello, all! I hope all is well, and that you're all safe and healthy, and that the weather is at least somewhat tolerable where you live. :-)
I have a question about how to get Messenger to behave. I updated my Messenger app on my Ipad 7 yesterday, and this behavior did not occur before the update. The only reason I know is that I had been talking with a good friend of mine on Messenger (Both texting and an audio call) and the only thing that it would say before the name of the person and the message, is either message seen or unread. Along with if they were active currently, or when they were last active, (Ex. last active 10 minutes ago)
Well, since the update, Messenger seems to think that every one, including people I haven't talked to in a while, is my favorite person, and it says favorited before the message/info.
Even though I have people that I talk to if not every day, like my parents and a good close friend of mine, or at least on a regular basis like my Gran, I'd rather not use this feature. I went through my messages to see if this was a new setting that got turned on for people I have regular contact with, or something else, and I found that every single message was favorited, no matter who it was from! I would rather not have favorited before every thing, especially with the people I talk to every day on Messenger like my parents. Because if say my Mom texts me, I'd rather know right away if she needs something for instance. With favorited, I feel like it slows me down. Not to mention I'm reading messages and responding using my braille display.
Is there a way to turn this off? And if so, or even if not, is there a way to deselect all to unfavorite them? Or will I have to do it individually? How would I do this?
I'm running the latest version of Messenger, on an Ipad 7, that is up-to-date with the latest version of Ipad-OS 15. Any help you can give me would be most appreciated! Thank you all in advance! :-)