Facebook and Privacy for You and Your Teen

As more and more parents are allowing your teens on Facebook, and as many of you are trying to figure out now to make your own way through the social networking maze yourself, you’ll want to be aware of what is happening at Facebook. In several recent redesigns they have made some alterations to their default privacy settings which have some interesting implications. The day I saw the notice from Facebook about new settings I was, as is often the case, in a rush. So I took the easy way out and accepted their recommendations for their default privacy setting. However, upon further inspection, I feel this is not a good choice. Their default privacy settings allow people to see my information – people who are NOT in my personal network. Not what I want, and probably not a good choice for your teenager either.

The New York Times reprinted an excellent piece from ReadWriteWeb The 3 Facebook Settings Every User Should Check Out which will guide you through the privacy setting issue. It will take all of 10 minutes at the most. Walk through this how-to article and make sure your settings are what you want on your Facebook page; then sit down with your teenager to walk through it on her page as well.

Facebook, like many institutions, isn’t out for our best interest. They are out for theirs.