In spite of its popularity and success, social networking site Facebook is, undeniably, still a work in progress, especially when it comes to privacy issues that have sparked discussions among users and critics. Now, if there's one clear word to describe the privacy issues of Facebook, it is this: ever-changing.
Research says the company has been working on three tweaks in its privacy setting to provide users more control and discretion on who sees which posts. This seems to be good news because privacy has been a major issue for many users of Facebook since its inception.
Two members of Facebook's privacy team - Raylene Yung, privacy engineering manager, and Michael Nowak, privacy product manager - have revealed the tweaks in development to reporters gathered at Facebook's offices in New York City, Menlo Park, Calif. and Washington, D.C.
First is on the audience selector. On iOS, the selector moves from the lower right to the upper left. Second is a change in the audience selector on Facebook's desktop Web version, which would only display two most popular choices, Public and Friends, in a bigger font, while the other choices are behind a submenu. Third is the so-called privacy checkup, a pop-up message with a cartoon dinosaur, asking users who haven't changed their privacy setting in a while. For instance, a user who constantly shares public posts will be asked again if they really want it to share to that particular audience.
Further research reveals other tweaks coming up as well. A few weeks from now, cover photos will no longer be public by default; so users can soon hide their cover photos from public. Facebook will also make it more clear to its users the terms of re-sharing or re-posting contents, like who can truly see those re-shared posts, through a special notification.
It also has been said that Facebook engineers have taken into account privacy considerations when creating new features, rather than just basing privacy on settings screen.
"We understand that some people have felt that Facebook privacy has changed too much in the past," said Nowak.
These privacy changes were Facebook's response to complaints and worries of many users, which the company has always been concerned of.
"At the end of the day ... when people have an unpleasant surprise like this it's bad for them and it's bad for us," Nowak said.
Yung and Nowak said privacy has always been important for Facebook, saying it actually conducts over 80 trillion privacy checks a day, just to ensure that posts have been shared to the right people. They also said the company continues to look for ways to bring about a satisfying experience for its 1.2 billions of users. In fact, they revealed Facebook makes use of over 4,000 daily surveys in 27 languages to help modify the privacy interface of the site.
