Facebook is looking to make their Privacy Controls easier to navigate. In a blog which reads more like a SecurityVibes article, Chris Kelly, Facebook’s Chief Privacy Officer, talks about some new features to help users become more aware of privacy issues.

Many users find the privacy settings in Facebook difficult to understand and to navigate due to poor interface design (eg the privacy settings are currently held in three separate menus and some settings overlap). As a result Facebook are in the midst of changing their design to amalgamate all the settings into one area and make their privacy controls simpler to use.

In addition Facebook are piloting a number of tools to better expose their privacy settings. For example, for existing users with no privacy settings enabled, Facebook are introducing a transition tool to enable users to think through each aspect of their profile and what people can see.

A new tool called the Publisher Privacy Control, will allow users to choose who can see the content they publish on a per-post basis. This is a very important and subtle change as for example, you may want to make some posts available to all friends (everyone), while restricting other posts to close friends whereas at the moment every post you make can be seen by everyone.

One final interesting aspect of Facebook’s new approach is their bold move to remove geographical groups. According to their studies roughly 50% of people in regional groups don’t use them and by joining them (as per Facebook’s Welcome Wizard), users are actually opening their accounts for perusal by anyone within these groups.

All of these changes are good and will better enable organisations to feel more confident when allowing employees access to social networks, however it is a shame that Facebook won’t yet make the brave move to lock everything down by making everything private for every user that joins. Once users have their account, the site should then use a welcome wizard to help them set up their details in a private manner.

References

Chris Kelly's Facebook Blog: Improved Sharing Through Control, Simplicity and Connection
Guardian UK: Facebook Tweaks Privacy Settings

Security Vibes Article: Social Networks Under Attack: User Defences
Security Vibes Article: Social Networks Under Attack: Technological Defences