Facebook hones privacy settings


26 Jun 2009

For most Facebook users, the content of their status update information in the ‘Publisher’ box – where text, links, video, images and more can be shared – is not always something they wish to share with everyone in their entire friends list.

Facebook is now trialling a beta version of controlled privacy settings for users, allowing them to choose who they share what with by selecting a group or network from a drop-down menu within Publisher.

You can choose only to publish to a single friend, your entire network, particular work, college or perhaps geographic networks, or friends of friends.

For now, this beta is only available to those users who have their profile and status update privacy set to ‘everyone’.

“After writing a status, uploading a photo or creating other content from the Publisher, use the lock icon in the lower-right corner of the Publisher to access the drop-down menu. From there, you can then choose who to make the post visible to,” said Olaoluwa ‘Ola’ Okelola on the official Facebook blog. http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=98499677130

Facebook has also stated that this new privacy tweak will not affect default privacy settings, and went on to explain that users may avail of the beta for reasons including giving out a new mobile number to a select few or sharing political views.

By Marie Boran