Facebook Officially Begins Rollout Of New Privacy Tools In U.S.
What started in New Zealand continues in the U.S., as Facebook officially announced that it began rolling out the new privacy tools it announced earlier this month, starting in the U.S. and rolling out globally by year-end.
What started in New Zealand continues in the U.S., as Facebook officially announced that it began rolling out the new privacy tools it announced earlier this month, starting in the U.S. and rolling out globally by year-end.
To summarize, Facebook is introducing:
- Privacy shortcuts.
- An easier-to-use activity log.
- A request and removal tool for photos that users are tagged in.
- In-context reminders warning users that content they choose to hide from their timelines may still appear elsewhere on the social network, such as news feed or search.
Facebook said in its announcement:
We believe that the better you understand who can see the things you share, the better your experience on Facebook can be.
We continue to strive toward three main goals: bringing controls in context where you share, helping you understand what appears where as you use Facebook, and providing tools to help you act on content you don’t like.
Below is the summary of the new features from AllFacebook’s Justin Lafferty, posted when they were first announced.
The first time a user logs into an application, it will break down requests for profile information. Previously, this happened in one screen — now it will happen in two, making sure that users know exactly what they are allowing apps to access:
Facebook is also doing a better job of educating users on who can see their posts, giving descriptions of what happens when you choose to hide something from your timeline:
And the social network gave its activity log a facelift. Introduced last year, the activity log is basically a running journal of everything you’ve done on the site.
With the new activity log, users can more easily see their likes and comments, as well as photos they’ve been tagged in.
Hate that a friend posted an unflattering photo of you? Now the site has more tools to connect users to ask for removal, writes Facebook’s Samuel Lessin:
Go to the “Photos of You” tab, select multiple photos, and ask friends to take down the shots you don’t like – you can even include a message about why this is important to you. The tool also lets you untag multiple photos at once, keeping in mind that while untagged photos don’t appear on your timeline, they can still appear in other places on Facebook, such as search, news feed, or your friends’ timelines.
Readers: Did Facebook leave anything out?
