Facebook Updates Privacy Options: Don't Click "Accept" Too Quickly!
Peek-a-boo! There's a decent chance that many, many more people will be "seeing you" if you aren't careful with your Facebook privacy settings, which were just recently overhauled by the powers that be. But many folks aren't exactly happy with the changes. When you think "privacy overhaul," you generally assume that the company you're dealing with is making changes to enforce stronger privacy rules and keep snoopers further away from your data. In the case of Facebook, it's actually encouraging less privacy.
Granted, that makes sense when you think about what exactly Facebook is. It's a social networking site. It thrives from people being able to see other things about other people. In fact, that's kind of its point and purpose. So hiding everything from everyone isn't in the best interest of Facebook as a whole. What Facebook has done is to bug (at random times, it seems) each one of its over 350 million members and ask them to update their privacy settings. As for what was wrong with the old ones? According to feedback, it was too complicated. There were too many options, and you never quite knew who could see what unless you spent hours checking every little gallery and every little information pane.
Now, Facebook is trying to simplify things by giving you more wide-reaching options that encompass more areas. The only problem? It wants you to open up more of your life. If you're happy with your old settings, you can feel free to keep those, but the new "suggested" settings aren't ones that err to the side of safety. Instead, they open up a lot of information to a lot of people. If you aren't being careful, you might assume that Facebook's recommended settings would hide most of your information from strangers and just accept them. That's a bad move.
When you see that fateful message pop up, be sure to carefully inspect your options. Your best bet is to stick with what you had if you were comfortable with them, but whatever you do, stay sharp!
Granted, that makes sense when you think about what exactly Facebook is. It's a social networking site. It thrives from people being able to see other things about other people. In fact, that's kind of its point and purpose. So hiding everything from everyone isn't in the best interest of Facebook as a whole. What Facebook has done is to bug (at random times, it seems) each one of its over 350 million members and ask them to update their privacy settings. As for what was wrong with the old ones? According to feedback, it was too complicated. There were too many options, and you never quite knew who could see what unless you spent hours checking every little gallery and every little information pane.
Now, Facebook is trying to simplify things by giving you more wide-reaching options that encompass more areas. The only problem? It wants you to open up more of your life. If you're happy with your old settings, you can feel free to keep those, but the new "suggested" settings aren't ones that err to the side of safety. Instead, they open up a lot of information to a lot of people. If you aren't being careful, you might assume that Facebook's recommended settings would hide most of your information from strangers and just accept them. That's a bad move.
When you see that fateful message pop up, be sure to carefully inspect your options. Your best bet is to stick with what you had if you were comfortable with them, but whatever you do, stay sharp!
