Facebook Privacy

Facebook made changes to how users share content with friends and friends of friends, etc.  Some features were relocated from obscure prvacy settings pages to more visible spots like the news feed and the profile pages.   New inline profile controls allow the control of the information that you share and it resembles Google+’s Circles sharing implementation. A new drop-down menu appears next to individual status updates and pieces of profile information so that users can decide which groups and friend lists can see bits of their personal lives.  The View Profile As tool will now reside at the top of your profile page rather than deep in the privacy settings, making it painless to preview what your mom will see before approving her friend request. Keep reading for a breakdown of some of the other big additions.

Facebook users can now control the types of information that others associate with the user.  Now users can tag people they are not yet friends with or pages that they haven’t yet Liked.  But when this happens, users will be able to approve or deny those tags before associated posts appear on their profiles — a welcomed feature if your friends are particularly tag-crazed or a spammer decides to tag you in a shoe photo.  Users can simply de-tag posts or remove them completely, and even request that the original content be removed completely from Facebook — you know, for when that mobile upload-crazed friend uploads a shot of you not in your finest moment. Other notable features include geo-location in status updates which replaces the  Facebook Places feature.  One of my favorite features is the ability to change who sees those status updates after they are posted.  Facebook has changed its “Everyone” terminology to “Public,” both borrowing lingo from Google+ and better representing the fact that those posts can be viewed by anyone online.

Here’s a list of the major improvements.

• The privacy settings are moving toward individual post windows and profiles.
• Users are gaining the ability to approve tags of themselves in others’ posts and photos.
• All tags will include an attribution of the person who did the tagging.
• Places no longer require physical check-ins, so people can add locations to posts, even from the desktop.
• You don’t need to be friends with someone to tag them in a post or photo.
• You don’t have to like a brand to tag it in a post or photo.
• Facebook has changed the word “everyone” to “public” in privacy settings, for clarity.
• You can customize privacy, or visibility of information, on a post-by-post basis.
• Users can edit the visibility of individual bits of content anytime after they post.
• The changes don’t affect mobile users, at least not for now.

Removing Tags

In addition to approving or declining tags, removing them after the fact becomes clearer. Decline a tag, and the following three choices will appear in a pop-up window:

• Remove the photo from your profile.
• Ask the person who uploaded the image to remove the photo.
• Block the individual who uploaded the picture.

Facebook describes the new tagging options on a new page you can access by clicking here.
Facebook privacy concerns should be remedied with the new features in place.  It takes a little time to get used to the changes but in doing so, it will help users feel much more comfortable with sharing their information online.

Do you like the new Facebook privacy controls?  Would you like help getting the privacy controls setup?  Leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts.