Facebook Switches Default Setting to Private to Prevent Oversharing
From now on, those who join the social network will find their postings automatically set to “friends.” First-time posters will see a reminder to choose an audience for their first post. If they don’t pick one, it will go to “friends.” Facebook made the change, it says, to protect users from oversharing. “We recognize that it is much worse for someone to accidentally share with everyone when they actually meant to share just with friends, compared with the reverse,” the company wrote in a blog post.
The decision comes as Facebook over the last year has moved to become more of a player in real-time conversations with hashtags and a trending topics list. Facilitating such conversations require more users to make public posts to reach critical mass. Facebook hasn’t released figures about its ratio of public-to-private posts, but Consumer Reports‘ research in 2012 found28% of Facebook users make all their posts public. A rep for the company says it is responding to feedback from users.
Like other Internet giants, Facebook has been especially vulnerable to criticisms about privacy. In particular, critics have complained that even if you deactivate your account, the information can still remain on the network and be subject to web searches. By taking a proactive stance, Facebook might be able to minimize such incidents. (Google is grappling with a similar situation in Europe in which users can now lobby the search giant to remove embarrassing links that show up in searches for their name.)
For critics, though, the latest move is likely to be seen as a half-measure since it applies only to brand new users, not the 1.2 billion people who visit the network every month. In coming weeks, Facebook plans to roll out a Privacy Checkup tool to remind users about their privacy options. Facebook made “public” the default for new users in 2009. “Friends” is the default for users aged 13 to 17.
