Changes to Facebook’s Privacy Settings Offer Simplicity and Easier Sharing
July 7th, 2009Author: Matt Geniesse
Facebook announced Wednesday that it will streamline privacy features and enable users to open their profiles to anyone on the Internet. Along with demystifying the complex privacy settings by unifying them into one simple page, users will now be able to set restrictions on individual pieces of content using the Publisher tool. Regional networks, adopted by only half of Facebook users, will be eliminated as the focus shifts to open content sharing.
Facebook’s move to simplicity still leaves users with plenty of options. For each of its seven content areas, users can choose one of five access levels:
Everyone [open to all Internet users]
Friends & Networks [all friends and anyone in your affiliated networks]
Friends of Friends [all friends and friends of friends]
Friends [only friends]
Custom [specific users and lists of users can be allowed or denied access]
With an option to make content public, you may wonder if a particular item you post on Facebook is visible on the entire Web. The biggest concern for people may be the possibility of their personal information becoming indexed by major search engines such as Google and Bing. When you first try to publish content for the world to see, Facebook will notify you that everyone will see your post unless you change your settings. The newest version of the Publisher tool includes a nifty feature that allows you to change privacy settings for individual posts. In addition to the added security, you can still use Publisher to share notes, photos, video and other content.
If you have already weaved through several complicated pages trying to set your privacy levels, plan to go through the process again with greater ease. The new settings will be introduced to you through transition tools designed to make the process as painless as possible. These tools will be tested over the next three weeks as the company begins a slow roll-out of its new privacy settings. Tech Crunch offers examples of these transition tools with screenshots from the Facebook press conference.
Facebook’s shift from promoting private profiles to public content sharing comes as the popularity of Twitter’s open platform continues to rise. Facebook began as a private network of college students with its owner, Mark Zuckerberg, capitalizing on its lure of exclusivity. Its platform served as a private alternative to popular social networking site, MySpace, which had become increasingly overrun by spam. Facebook users will now be encouraged to open their status updates and basic information to all Web users, mimicking Twitter’s default settings.
Twitter is a fast-growing force in social media, but Facebook regularly rejuvenates itself and holds strong in the top position with a massive variety of content and over 200 million users.
