Facebook has announced that it plans to update its terms of use and privacy policies at the start of next year. Coinciding with this change, the company has introduced Privacy Basics to help you understand how to stay private on the site and how Facebook uses your data.
Much of the information in Privacy Basics won’t be new to anyone who’s ever read our guides to Facebook privacy. However, it’s an excellent intro if you’re lost or new to locking things down. Tutorials are broken up into three major categories: “What Others See About You”, “How Others Interact With You” and “What You See”.
Of course, this doesn’t actually solve any of the privacy issues people have with Facebook. But it does help explain the intended behaviour of the site. Even veteran users would probably benefit from taking a quick tour to discover if anything is used in a way you might not expect. If you would like to give Facebook any feedback or criticism about the new privacy policies before they go into effect, the company has directed users here.
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One response to “Facebook Launches Privacy Basics To Help You Learn How It Uses Your Data”
This is all well and good, but until I can specify who sees what posts I like and what I comment on, it’ll still be broken. I don’t like pressing “like” on a post or commenting on something, only to find that my actions have been broadcast to my entire friends list “Grayda commented on X”.
It’s like sitting at a restaurant having a chat with your partner and having someone listening over your shoulder, shouting out what you’ve just said. Even if it’s just talking about going grocery shopping the next day, you still wouldn’t want that, right? So why does Facebook do it?
On Google+, nobody can see what I’ve commented on, unless other people can see the post themselves, and even then, they’d need to check out my whole friends list to try and find out where I’ve commented. You can even turn off “Grayda +1’d this post” or only show it to certain circles.
Google+ has had security down pat right from the word go.