.png)
Well, Facebook has gone and updated their privacy settings again. Now, you can individually customize the privacy settings for every status update you post. Choices include: everyone, friends and networks, friends of friends, only friends, and custom.
What’s “custom” mean? Well, if you select that as an option, here’s what you’ll see:
Here’s the “notification” you’ll see when you log into Facebook:
And here’s what your status update area will look like:
Is this a good development? Or a bad one?
Well, I think it approximates the natural flow of human conversation better. Sometimes you’ll want to only tell things to certain friends, other times you’re fine sharing with the world. My only concern is that as Facebook becomes more “everyone” oriented… not everyone will realize that once private content is now visible to everyone on the web.
Even with these new flexible privacy settings, remember that what you say does matter. Just because you can adjust who sees your post, doesn’t mean you should start complaining in private online. What if you accidentally mislabeled the privacy setting? Your rant about your boss being inconsiderate would no longer be a private grumble — it would become a public proclamation. When you customize your privacy settings for status updates, it might not be a bad idea to ask, “what would happen if this became public?”
Play it safe. Don’t say things in “private” that you might regret later.
