Daily Bits

facebook privacy

Are You Happy with Facebook’s New and Simpler Privacy Controls?

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Here’s could probably be Facebook’s last ditch effort at convincing everyone of us that it minds user privacy. And this could possibly make or break Facebook, either retaining loyal users to driving them away to other “more secured” social networking sites.

So as Facebook is confronted with issues about its “complex” privacy policy, it now announces a simpler privacy control measures via a long post on the Official Facebook blog. But essentially, there are three major issues addressed by Facebook’s new privacy controls.

First thing which Facebook did was to build one simple control for setting who can see content that you post. You can now specify whether the content is viewable by everyone, friends of your friends or just by your friends. Which ever settings you choose will be applied to new products which Facebook will introduce in the future.  You don’t need to set them up once new products are introduced.

Then Facebook also reduced the amount of basic information that are visible to everyone. The connections privacy model was also removed. You now have the ability to control who can see your friends and pages and those information are no longer default to public. Of course, as these are basic information, it is but logical to have these for public viewing since its the only way for other people to find you. Otherwise, there’s no point in maintaining your Facebook account anymore.

Finally, Facebook also made it simpler to control how apps and websites access any of your information. Turning this off is now easier and can be easily done via a simple click. Turning off instant personalization is also easier now and gives you the facility to allow only partner sites to see things you’ve made visible to everyone.

With that, Facebook is proud to announced that its privacy model is now complete. And it hopes that issues concerning user privacy would be finally put to a rest.

These new privacy controls will be rolled out to everyone in the next few weeks. By then, we will know whether users are satisfied with the measures and make them stay with Facebook.

Originally posted on May 26, 2010 @ 9:51 pm

Facebook Updates its Safety Center

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Facebook wants to tell the world that it is really serious about your safety as it strives to create an online environment where everyone can connect with anybody, share updates and stuff without getting bothered by possible phising, malware and privacy attacks. To reiterate its vow in protecting user privacy, Facebook just launched a completely redesigned Safety Center.

The Facebook Safety Center offers new safety resources for parents, educators, teens and members of the law enforcement community. Facebook has also created a cleaner and more navigable interfaces that would help you find answers to questions relating to your safety as you use Facebook.

It also contains multimedia contents culled from Facebook itself as well as from independent organizations which specializes in online safety and security. You can find safety-related content organized by audience type and by topics including “Addressing Personal Safety” and “Responding to Objectionable Content.” If you’re a parent you can easily find the “Safety for Parents” section where you’ll get advice from Facebook’s partners such as the Safety Advisory Board.

The Facebook Safety Advisory Board includes members such as the Childnet International, Common Sense Media, Connect Safely, The Family Online Safety Institute and WiredSafety.

And while you’re checking out the new Facebook Safety Center page, you might also want to read on other important Facebook rules, policies and guidelines. It’s located just below the page and include information on – Facebook Privacy FAQ, Privacy Policy, Guide to Privacy on Facebook and other relevant Facebook official documents.

Originally posted on April 13, 2010 @ 11:58 pm