How to fix Facebook's new privacy settings

Today, when I logged on to facebook, I got the directive to update my privacy settings to fit in to the new and simplified scheme.

But a closer look and you know that the privacy controls are now more complex and more powerful. The new set-up page seems more designed to pry this privacy from you than give you access to the new, and excellent, controls that Facebook has put in place. The page doesn’t seem to be designed for the users of the service; rather it looks at getting users Facebook more permission than they should, to put their private data in the public sphere. It does this by organizing what are called, ‘recommended’ privacy settings rather than by your previous settings.

 If you accept the recommendations on the page, items that you likely used to keep restricted to just people in your network or to your extended network will be visible to everyone on the Web and that includes your photos and wall posts!That’s what Facebook recommends, and apparently wants. Likewise, your political and religious views, as per Facebook recommendation, will now be shared with your entire extended network, which, if you’re reasonably connected in the world, will easily include people with whom you’d rather not share this information.

 With the new defaults, Facebook becomes more searchable, more Twitter-like, and gets more traffic from search engines. As far the return that users get; facebook offers something new and valuable, i.e. the capability to control who can see each individual post with incredible specificity.

 The feature that lets a user put up a post that’s open to their entire network (friends of friends) except for a specific person or people is FANTASTIC! For all the gossip queens and kings…it would be a great feature 🙂

… And finally..here’s how to exercise full control over your Facebook privacy settings. First, blast past the new simple settings page. Second, go straight to the top menu, and under the Settings drop-down pick “Privacy Settings.” From that screen you can select several privacy-related categories. The most important is the “Profile Information” page, which gives you very precise, fine-grained control over who can see what. This is the privacy screen you should spend time thinking about and working on.