Los Angeles — Stepping up on a most contentious topic of the past, social networking giant Facebook is taking another swing by announcing a handful of privacy-related changes today after some users complained the system is confusing; hence now updated its privacy settings with shortcuts, an easily accessible Activity Log, and an update request and removal tool.
The move comes as constant criticism that the site made it too hard to keep information private, and kept shifting default settings to expose more data. But with the update, a few that make it simpler for users to access and change their personal settings and another that may make a small percentage of the user base upset, in its latest bid to give consumers more control and clarity over what personal information is shared.
The social network company said that it is adding a new Privacy Shortcuts control next to the home button on the Facebook title bar that follows users around as they explore the site. The change is the biggest update to its privacy settings in more than a year, and will begin appearing to the sites’ one billion registered users over the next few weeks.
When the new updates go live at the end of the year, the most evident change will be “privacy shortcuts” menu appearing as a tiny lock at the right-hand side of the screen, at the top of the “news feed”, with a menu offering answers to questions such as “Who can see my stuff?” and “Who can contact me?” option, as well as “How do I stop someone from bothering me?” or a “See all settings” link will also take you to the broader Facebook privacy page.
The new feature streamlines a process that was difficult to navigate and consolidates it to a single click. Also this will allow you to quickly determine who can see the content you post on the social media hub, who can contact you through your Facebook web page, and to block people who are not really your friends.
The company further said that it will also attach alerts throughout the site to remind you how certain features work — “such as in-context reminders about how stuff you hide from timeline may still appear in news feed, search, and other places,” the company said. The move, Facebook said, is intended to help you quickly access your settings without having to “navigate through a separate set of pages.”
The alerts, meanwhile, will pop-up when you hide or block something from your account. If you hide an item from your timeline, for instance, a message will pop-up below that says, “It still appears in search, news feed and other places on Facebook.” If that is unacceptable, there is also the option to report the item or remove a tag.
Another noteworthy change the company revealed is that it is also improving the Activity Log to make it easier for users to interact with all the information that is being shared and what is showing up on their Timelines and friends’ news feeds.
Interestingly, the Activity Log now empowers users the ability to manage photo through a request and removal tool that will let you more easily get rid of embarrassing photos or check-ins you do not want to broadcast to the entire world. You can send a bulk take-down request to friends with a message explaining why you hate the pics — or just untag multiple photos at once.
Last but not the least, the main goal of these changes is to clarify for users how their information is shared across the social network. Besides, Facebook is also tackling the controversy surrounding its “frictionless sharing” option, where apps like Spotify would share your listening habits with your Facebook friends.
Before today’s update, Facebook apps would combine all their permissions in one menu before installing on your accounts; access your friends list and posting activity to Facebook, for example. Now apps must ask users for the ability to grab their personal info separately from asking them to be allowed to post on their behalf. This will go into effect for most apps — but some like games apps on Facebook.com will not require the two-stage app permission.
“Soon you will start to see these requests happen separately, so you have more control over what you share,” Facebook said. There is also been a little bit of a language shift within the permissions. Instead of asking to access a user’s “basic info,” it now asks to access their “public profile and friend list.”
This is a pretty significant stir to Facebook’s privacy stew. These most useful updates come after Facebook held a vote on several changes to its terms — including whether people should be able to vote on changes to the site. The changes failed to garner enough votes in opposition, so say au revoir to the “democratic” Facebook.