Today, Facebook announced some changes to their default privacy settings for new users, as well as a new privacy checkup tool for current users.
Facebook understands that some users don’t mind publishing a post for everyone to see, but some users would rather share their content with a smaller group:
We recognize that it is much worse for someone to accidentally share with everyone when they actually meant to share just with friends, compared with the reverse.
What Facebook has done to satisfy users concerned about privacy settings is introduce these two new features.
New Default Settings
When new users join Facebook, the first post they publish will be set to go out to friends only by default. Previously, the default privacy setting was Public.
New users will be greeted with a reminder to choose an audience for their first post, with the choices being either Friends or Public. If no choice is made, the audience will be set to Friends.
Of course, new users will still be able to change who they are posting to at any time, and will still have the option to change the privacy of their previous posts.
Privacy Checkup Tool For Current Users
Where current users are concerned, Facebook will be rolling out a new and expanded privacy checkup tool over the next few weeks.
The new tool will walk users through a series of steps to review their privacy settings, such as who can see their posts, which apps they’ve given permissions to, and the privacy of key pieces of information on their profile.
We want to do all we can to put power and control in people’s hands. This new tool is designed to help people make sure they are sharing with just the audience they want. Everything about how privacy works on Facebook remains the same.
Facebook has been making a serious effort over the past few months to alleviate some of its privacy concerns. Most notably Facebook has added reminders to people when they are posting publicly, and made it easier on the iPhone app for users to select the audience they want to share a post with.
Facebook also introduced Anonymous Login last month, which lets users log in to apps without sharing any personal information.
For more information about Facebook’s privacy settings, you can visit this section of their Help Center.
