Facebook on Thursday announced new privacy-related features that apply to both existing and new users interested in joining the platforms. The company has apparently acknowledged the fact that not all things should be shared with the public, and Facebook users should be able to only share stuff with their friends.
“While some people want to post to everyone, others have told us that they are more comfortable sharing with a smaller group, like just their friends,” the company wrote on its blog. “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.”
In other words, new Facebook users will have the default audience of their first post set to “Friends” rather than “Public,” as it was set for users in the past. Furthermore, first-time users will get a reminder to choose an audience for the first post – the audience can be changed later even for past posts.
People who already have Facebook accounts will get access to a new “expanded privacy checkup tool, which will take people through a few steps to review things like who they’re posting to, which apps they use, and the privacy of key pieces of information on their profile.”
The company added that it introduced additional “tools and features” over the past several months to offer more control to users on what they share on Facebook and with whom. The tools include a public posting reminder, simplified audience selectors on Facebook for iPhone, support for anonymous login and new controls for Facebook login, and a redesigned app control panel which shows which apps have access to Facebook data.
