Facebook Announces Improved Privacy Settings

I just read the latest Open Letter from Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg announcing some upcoming changes in FB’s privacy settings. I for one have been looking forward to this latest evolution in FB’s privacy options.

I love Facebook. It is probably my favorite spot on the social web. That’s because it does the best job of enabling me to connect with the people and things I care about online.

I can keep in touch with my favorite cousin in London and my 15 year old nephew in Zimbabwe. I can also keep track of my favorite pastime – reading – using the Living Social application on Facebook. I share my latest reads with friends, see what they are reading and engage in lots of interesting discussions I couldn’t otherwises have, given the fact that many of the folks who share my particular interests  are located all over the globe.

Like I said, people and things I care about.

In spite of my love of FB, I have experienced some frustration when it comes to its privacy settings.  As FB has evolved, so has my (and others’) use of it. When I first joined the network 3 years ago, it was so I could keep in touch with a few old friends from college. Privacy settings were not an issue for me then.

Now my use of it is dramatically different. In addtion to friends and family, I also keep in touch with  clients and organizations and businesses I support. As the demographic profile of FB users changes, seemingly overnight, so does the range of people and organizations I want and need to connect with.

This is great, but do I really want to share the same things with all the same people? For me the answer is a resounding NO!

Not every status update/video/link/comment I share with my college friends is appropriate to share with my nephew.  I would never have certain conversations while he was present, so why would I want to share those things with him online? The same is true of my family and my clients. Do the clients I happen to be friends with via FB need to know the details of the latest family news? I think not.

This has been an issue for many of the other 349 million people on FB and I’m glad that the FB team is listening to the many requests for improvements in this area.

The new changes seem to promise an easier way to control who  gets to see the content I post. To quote Mark Zuckerberg’s post:

“We’re adding something that many of you have asked for — the ability to control who sees each individual piece of content you create or upload.”

Easier Privacy

In addition to the ability to modify privacy on idividual pieces of content, the email promise a simpler way to modify privacy settings. It took me a while to figure out how to tailor my privacy settings and I know that for people who spend even less time in the network than I do, it is particularly challenging.

When I teach introductory social media or FB workshops, I share with participants the fact the FB  allows users to create custom groupings of friends and assign them different privacy settings. For many people this is a revelation of dramatic proportions. I’ve had  a number of people share that their fear of having everyone have access to everything they post has been the one thing holding them back from joining and using FB.

Yes, privacy changes  and user lists have been present for a while, but I don’t think they have been easy to modify and many people new to FB  have no idea this is even an option.

I’m hoping that the new changes to the privacy page  are really easier and allow people to connect and share in ways that make them more comfortable.

I for one am really excited to test drive these change and see if it allows me the flexibilty I crave in controlling access to my FB content.