New Privacy Changes on Facebook

It looks like online privacy has received a shot in the arm from the top dog of social media. Earlier this week, Facebook announced they are making several changes that will make it clearer with whom you are sharing photos, status updates, locations and tags. In fact, it’s one of the biggest privacy overhauls in Facebook’s history.

Every single one of Facebook users (otherwise known as 750 million people) will be provided with a tutorial about the updated privacy settings, but we thought it might help to highlight a some of the more important changes. Here’s a general breakdown on how these changes will impact you and your children’s privacy:

*More control of profile: New tools will now allow you to have more control over who sees what on your profile. Based on how private you feel the photo or information is that you would like to share, there will be a icon and drop-down menu that will let you decide who (the public, friends or a custom group) can view it.

*Photo Posting and Tagging Permission: Gone are the days when someone who had a photo of you could post it and it would automatically post to your wall. Now, you will be able to change your settings so you can approve every photo or post before it appears on your Facebook page. Plus, you have the option to review and approve or reject any tag someone tries to add to your photos or posts.

Furthermore, the options on how to remove photos or tags of yourself from your profile or from someone else’s will be presented more clearly. More information on this can be found at http://www.facebook.com/about/tagging.

*Settings Page Overhaul: The privacy settings are now integrated at the profile page level which has resulted in a change in the settings page. It will now be presented in a much cleaner and simpler form.

*View Profile As: This tool which gives you an opportunity to see how certain people could see your profile is now more accessible. Previously, it was hidden on the old privacy settings page. Now, it’s located at the top right-hand corner of the user's profile.

*Public updates: In status updates, the “Everyone” option has been renamed “Public” for greater clarity that anyone is able to see an update but that doesn’t mean everyone will see it.

More information on these changes and others can be found on the Facebook’s August 23rd blog post: http://blog.facebook.com/.