As teens turn away from Facebook for more interesting, intriguing and currently hot social media options such as Twitter and Instagram, the company is trying to bring them back in with new privacy settings just for them.
Once controllably restricted, 13 to 17 year olds can now share photos, updates, and comments with the general public. This means that complete strangers as well as companies collecting data for advertising and marketing purposes.
I'm not sure that this is the way to reel 'em back in, Facebook! In fact, it sounds like something that might do the exact opposite.
Teens can also turn on the "Follow" feature, letting anyone follow them that they are not 'friends' with on the social media platform. This allows 'followers' to view all public posts in the main news feed.
Changes are set to take effect immediately, and Facebook thinks doing so will bring the youngsters back over to the 'book' instead of its competitors social networks because the less restrictive changes will provide more freedom for them despite their age.
Is it just me, or is this new 'open book' kind of scary? The ever-changing platform seems to be dissolving any idea of 'privacy' slowly but surely.
Children under 13 are still not allowed to officially sign up for Facebook. We'll see how long it takes for that to change, as well. Despite this 'rule,' lying about their age is as simple as 1+1=2.
Other ever-changing features of Facebook include the layout, timeline, photos, status updates, news feed, commenting, 'like-ing,' and the most recent one we covered removal of the option to be unsearchable on the database. It seems like Facebook is leaning towards entire transparency in the realms of privacy.
Facebook is giving its teenage users a public voice on the platform. For the first time, beginning Wednesday, users between the ages of 13 and 17 will be able to post publicly and obtain followers of their profiles. Previously, teens using Facebook were only able to share content with friends, friends of friends and custom groups like "family." Now, they can choose to share posts to anyone on Facebook, just like users 18 and older.
"Teens are among the savviest people using of social media, and whether it comes to civic engagement, activism, or their thoughts on a new movie, they want to be heard," Facebook wrote in a blog post. "While only a small fraction of teens using Facebook might choose to post publicly, this update now gives them the choice to share more broadly, just like on other social media services."
Any teenager wishing to share a status update or post publicly must first manually change the audience setting on his post to "public" before sharing. After doing so, a pop-up explains that the post will be visible to everyone on the site. The post will go live once the user clicks "ok" on this pop-up box, acknowledging he has seen the warning and intends to share publicly.
Facebook's audience settings remain unchanged from post to post for all users, including teens. For example, if a user shares a post publicly, the audience setting will remain on "public" for the user's next post. For teens, a second reminder message will pop up if they choose to post publicly the next time around.
Teenagers can also change settings to allow non-friends to follow public posts. Users who choose to follow a teenager will be able to see these public posts, with the exception of posts that have not been shared with them. Teenagers will not be followable automatically, and will need to manually update their settings to enable follows.
A new teenager who join Facebook will have his audience settings automatically set to "friends," and will need to manually change that setting in order to share with the public.
Wednesday's update will not impact existing Facebook posts from teens, and it won't automatically change the audience for any future posts. That must be done manually. The update simply gives teenagers the ability to share publicly, just as they can on other social sites like Twitter.
Facebook tweaked its privacy settings and will no longer allow users to completely hide from others searching for them on the site. In other words, with few exceptions, we're all now searchable on Facebook.
The company is officially retiring the “Who can look up your Timeline by name?” setting over the next few weeks, completing a process the social network started last December when it first announced it would slowly eliminate the feature.
For many users who were no longer using the “Who can look up your Timeline by name?” feature, Thursday's change should have no impact on how others can search and view their profile. Those users still utilizing the setting will see a message from Facebook on their homepage acknowledging the update.
With the setting completely eliminated, all Facebook users (minus minors and those who have blocked you) will be searchable through the site's Graph Search tool. That doesn't, however, mean that their content and page will be visible to those who come across it. Only posts that users have shared publicly will be available to those outside of their network.
The best way to control what people can find about you is to choose the audience of the individual things you share," explained Facebook on the company's blog.
"When users post something to their timeline, they can choose who will be able to see it: Friends, Public, Only Me, and a Custom setting where users can exclude individuals or groups. Users who are sharing something publicly will be met with a pop up that reminds them they are sharing with everybody.
Users can also go to their activity log in settings to delete or hide posts, or change who can see previously shared posts on their Timeline.
To do this, just go to Settings in the upper right hand corner of the home screen, then click "Privacy Settings" and select "Review all posts and things you're tagged in" link.
What are your thoughts on Facebook's privacy settings update? Is it simple enough for you to restrict your content on the social network? Let us know in the comments.
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