Facebook changes

Mike Bantick
Wednesday, 02 December 2009 09:26

Your IT - Entertainment

The world’s largest social networking site is making some face changes.  Having reached 350 million users worldwide, it was time for the team at Facebook to revaluate the sites structure.


In and open letter to the 350 million users of Facebook, founder Mark Zuckerberg outlines proposed changes to the most popular social networking site on the globe.

In the letter Zuckerberg points out the growth of ‘Networks’ within the site and how these classifications were the original basis for inbuilt security of information between groups of Facebook users, “This worked well when Facebook was mostly used by students, since it made sense that a student might want to share content with their fellow students.” Zuckerberg said.

“Over time people also asked us to add networks for companies and regions as well. Today we even have networks for some entire countries, like India and China.” Zuckerberg continues “However, as Facebook has grown, some of these regional networks now have millions of members and we've concluded that this is no longer the best way for you to control your privacy. Almost 50 percent of all Facebook users are members of regional networks, so this is an important issue for us. If we can build a better system, then more than 100 million people will have even more control of their information. “

Instead the Facebook team is proposing to remove the regional networks in favour of expanded security settings giving more control over just who can access or even see a particular user’s information and content.

Facebooks users should expect the update to roll out very soon “In the next couple of weeks we'll ask you to review and update your privacy settings.”  Zuckerberg explains, “You'll see a message that will explain the changes and take you to a page where you can update your settings. When you're finished, we'll show you a confirmation page so you can make sure you chose the right settings for you. As always, once you're done you'll still be able to change your settings whenever you want.”

The update will also suggest the new security option settings based on the current, somewhat convoluted security settings users have in place under the current system.