In what has become something of an annual ritual, Facebook has rolled out plans to revamp the privacy settings that control users’ information and posts to their pages.
There’s nothing dramatically different in this tweak, other than the fact that users have lost the right to approve or disapprove policy changes through a vote. That right returns solely to the company in their Data Use Policy as of December 11. Facebook and their advertisers still have access to all of your user information and activity, as do any third party applications that you choose to use. Now, however, for applications to access your data and share it with other users you will have to give two separate permissions – one for access and another for posting to your account.
The other significant change is that users can no longer opt out of inclusion in Facebook search. In their official statement about the revised privacy settings the company says, “Because of the limited nature of the setting, we removed it for people who weren’t using it, and have built new, contextual tools, along with education about how to use them. In the coming weeks, we’ll be retiring this setting for the small percentage of people who still have it.”
Beyond those two points most of the differences in the new policy lie in the arrangement and notification system for search and privacy-related activity.
- Shortcuts. Instead of delving deeply into the settings pages to change or update your privacy preferences, you’ll now be able to access these controls via shortcuts from the home page.
- Explanations. When you exercise privacy options, you’ll be given popup explanations of what you’ve just done and how it works, in addition to reminders of where these limits won’t apply. This can help you understand the flow of your information better than you may have under the old system.
- Easier ‘untagging’ options. You can now untag yourself in multiple photos at once, and submit requests to other users that they remove content you don’t want available.
- One-click blocking. To block a user who’s irritated you beyond your threshold of tolerance, you can now access a simple blocking tool from the privacy shortcut dropdown menu on your home page.
- Filtered activity searches. The Activity Log on your profile page now lets you filter to see only some kinds of content. For instance, you can set the search to produce only photos or other kinds of posts to your page.
As is the tradition with the evolution of Facebook privacy, users are losing a bit of control in this update. On the flip side, this newest incarnation of the policy allows you to find and understand the meaning of your choices more easily than in previous updates. If you don’t have the new settings yet, never fear – they’ll be coming to you before the new year. Once you’ve had a chance to explore them, please let us know. Love them? Hate them? Or do they even make a difference at all?
