Facebook poised to roll out more privacy controls
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook is trying to make its privacy controls easier to find and understand in an effort to turn the world's largest social network in to a more discreet place.
The fine-tuning announced Wednesday will include several revisions that will start rolling out to Facebook's more than 1 billion users during the next few weeks and continue into early next year.
The most visible, and perhaps most appreciated, change will be a new "privacy shortcuts" section that appears as a tiny lock on the right-hand side at the top of people's news feeds. This feature offers a drop-down box where users can get answers to common questions such as "Who can see my stuff?" and "How do I stop someone from bothering me?"
Other updates will include a tool that enables individuals to review all the publicly available pictures identifying them on Facebook and suggestions on how to request that an embarrassing or unflattering photograph be removed. Facebook also plans to plant a privacy education page at the top of its users' news feeds within the next month or so to help them better manage their online identities.
This marks the most extensive overhaul of Facebook's privacy controls in about 15 months.
The new controls are an implicit acknowledgement by Facebook that the nearly 9-year-old service hasn't always done the best job providing its users with easily accessible ways to corral the information and photos being posted on the website.
Facebook's critics suspect the social network deliberately obfuscated its privacy controls as part of a scheme to expose as much personal information as possible to help the company attract more advertisers.
But that has never been the case, according to Samuel Lessin, Facebook's director of product management. "Our number one priority is to not surprise users with our controls," he said.
Facebook Inc., which is based in Menlo Park, Calif., began paying more attention to its privacy controls and reputation as it matured into one of the world's best-known companies. The scrutiny has intensified since Facebook became a publicly traded company seven months ago.
Some of the upcoming changes reflect Facebook's ambition to establish its website as a digital scrapbook that will contain key moments spanning many decades of its users' lives.
The new photo-reviewing tool is designed to make it easier for someone to flag old pictures that might not seem as cool as they once did. For instance, a Facebook user who didn't mind being shown quaffing beer from a keg as an 18-year-old in college might not feel comfortable having that image publicly available as a 30-year-old looking for a job or starting a family.
Facebook rarely will remove a photo on its own, but one of its new features helps users ask a friend who posted the image to take it down.
Facebook is reshuffling its privacy controls the same week that it revoked its users' right to vote on changes to the social network's privacy policies. Lessin said the timing is purely coincidental.
The fine-tuning announced Wednesday will include several revisions that will start rolling out to Facebook's more than 1 billion users during the next few weeks and continue into early next year.
The most visible, and perhaps most appreciated, change will be a new "privacy shortcuts" section that appears as a tiny lock on the right-hand side at the top of people's news feeds. This feature offers a drop-down box where users can get answers to common questions such as "Who can see my stuff?" and "How do I stop someone from bothering me?"
Other updates will include a tool that enables individuals to review all the publicly available pictures identifying them on Facebook and suggestions on how to request that an embarrassing or unflattering photograph be removed. Facebook also plans to plant a privacy education page at the top of its users' news feeds within the next month or so to help them better manage their online identities.
This marks the most extensive overhaul of Facebook's privacy controls in about 15 months.
The new controls are an implicit acknowledgement by Facebook that the nearly 9-year-old service hasn't always done the best job providing its users with easily accessible ways to corral the information and photos being posted on the website.
Facebook's critics suspect the social network deliberately obfuscated its privacy controls as part of a scheme to expose as much personal information as possible to help the company attract more advertisers.
But that has never been the case, according to Samuel Lessin, Facebook's director of product management. "Our number one priority is to not surprise users with our controls," he said.
Facebook Inc., which is based in Menlo Park, Calif., began paying more attention to its privacy controls and reputation as it matured into one of the world's best-known companies. The scrutiny has intensified since Facebook became a publicly traded company seven months ago.
Some of the upcoming changes reflect Facebook's ambition to establish its website as a digital scrapbook that will contain key moments spanning many decades of its users' lives.
The new photo-reviewing tool is designed to make it easier for someone to flag old pictures that might not seem as cool as they once did. For instance, a Facebook user who didn't mind being shown quaffing beer from a keg as an 18-year-old in college might not feel comfortable having that image publicly available as a 30-year-old looking for a job or starting a family.
Facebook rarely will remove a photo on its own, but one of its new features helps users ask a friend who posted the image to take it down.
Facebook is reshuffling its privacy controls the same week that it revoked its users' right to vote on changes to the social network's privacy policies. Lessin said the timing is purely coincidental.
Too late. I wouldn't even consider clicking on any link posted by anyone on fb, having no idea when, whether, where, how, for how long, to whom or in what context that single act of clicking a link will be communicated without my knowledge. I wouldn't even know where to begin to figure that out and even if I could, there's no guarantee that that condition would continue past the next "privacy update." I'm in the process now of dusting off an old linkedin profile and once that's done, goodbye fb. I have no concerns about the impression my professional profile makes on a friend or someone who wants to know about me; I have serious concerns about the impression an unstructured social "profile" makes on potential employers and business contacts since I have no idea how that information will be aggregated or presented. It really boils down to that.
Is that why I can no longer access my account profile and determine who gets access to it?
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Facebook's business model is based on selling your private information and using the information that you give them to sell you things. Â Never post anything on Facebook that you wouldn't want the entire world to see.
Translation: FB will start to be more sneaky about data-mining and the selling of that data.
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There is a fre browser add-on that allows you to encrypt EVERYTHING on FaceBook, so only your "friends" can red it, and all FB gets is the encrypted, useless junk. Don't recall what it is called, but I'd strongly recommend that if you DO, you use it.
Interesting. FB does not really WANT people to maintain any privacy.... their business is selling information about people. So this is simply more cosmetics by FB in response to heat from governments.Â
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Any real privacy additions will be those they figure are going to somehow be imposed if they don't act.
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Most people are sheep though, and won't care...until it's too late.  Give the people bread and games, and you can rule.
Facebook needs to do something better than: "a new 'privacy shortcuts' section that appears as a tiny lock on the right-hand side at the top of people's news feeds"Â It should be something more obvious than a tiny lock such as a button or link that says "Privacy Options"
At least its a step in the right direction. I'm glad to hear about the change on pictures. Granted, there is more that needs to be done though.
Facebook is so stupid. I wonder what people are going to do when it blows over like myspace did, and they have no audience to upload photos of their food to?
 @northwestsurfer You obviously know nothing... FB has been around twice as long as MySpace was and it keeps growing.Â
@PortSCUM Oh, you again. You like to troll the forums. Tell me then Scum, how much do I know? Pretty interesting that I know how long Facebook has been out, and I knew about Facebook way before I knew about Myspace. I had a Myspace account in 2006, but I had heard about Facebook before that. Thats weird huh, cause i know nothing.
Know what else is weird? My statement was a matter of opinion; I didnt cite anything to back it up. Are you going to argue with someone about an opinion now? Your photo clearly shows your face, and I think you are pretty unattractive; thats another opinion.
These aren't really all that much of a change. This was a poorly-done attempt at distraction.
Not what I wanted to hear. I was hoping it would be a real change.