14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook has unveiled the simplified privacy settings it has been talking about for the past week. The new settings are easier to understand and it’s easier to get an overview of what you share and with whom. The move is likely to settle the increasingly vocal and mostly warranted criticism of Facebook’s practices regarding user privacy. Facebook says the new settings give users more control over their data to enable them to share as much as they want.
“The number one thing we've heard is that there just needs to be a simpler way to control your information. We've always offered a lot of controls, but if you find them too hard to use then you won't feel like you have control. Unless you feel in control, then you won't be comfortable sharing and our service will be less useful for you,” Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, announced on the Facebook blog.
“Today we're starting to roll out some changes that will make all of these controls a lot simpler. We've focused on three things: a single control for your content, more powerful controls for your basic information and an easy control to turn off all applications,” he said.
The new privacy controls page has an easy-to-understand layout. It will display your current privacy settings and you have several options to change them. The easiest way is to choose from one of the three basic options. With one click, you can choose to share all of your data on Facebook with “Everyone,” “Friends of Friends” or “Friends Only.” If you’re comfortable with any of those options, you can leave it at that.
Another option is to select the “Recommended” privacy settings, which strive to find a balance between privacy and openness. Things like photos, status updates and profile data will be available to everyone. Slightly more sensitive things like photos you’ve been tagged with or religious views are only available to friends of friends. Finally, personal data like emails, IMs, phone numbers, and the possibility to comment on your posts can be restricted to friends only. Of course, you can customize all the individual settings like you’ve always been able to.
This is just part of the privacy revamp. Facebook also shares less by default and is giving users the option to make private things that they weren’t able before, the friends list and the pages they’ve liked. There is also more control over what applications get access to which data. And if they don’t like apps at all, they can turn off the Facebook app Platform completely.
Finally, Facebook has also addressed one of the most recent changes and the thing that probably started this new wave of Facebook privacy backlash, the instant personalization feature, which enables third-party sites to access the data you already make public. Now, you can turn off the feature entirely.
The new privacy control settings are being rolled out over the next weeks to everyone. Facebook says these new settings and defaults are here to stay. What’s more, new features that Facebook rolls out will default to the settings you already chose. The social network may tweak them based on feedback, but, for the most part, these options are going to be there for a long time to come.