Facebook’s New Privacy Policy Important Changes You Should Know

Facebook plunged into the biggest image crisis recently, ever since the social media giant was created. This was as a result of the Cambridge Analytica data misinterpretation revelation. As the #deletefacebook campaign was spreading like wildfire, the social media acted swiftly by activating a damage control mode. The revelation made the conglomerate to lost nearly $46 billion in stock valuation, and this made the CEO and founder, Mark Zuckerberg to apologize for a “breach of trust” via media interactions and full-page newspaper advertisements. To prove to its users the seriousness of taking corrective measures, Facebook followed up its apology with the introduction of a new privacy policy to keep people informed.

The announcement of the new privacy policy has been tagged with phrases like “more transparency”, “cracking down on abuse of the Facebook platform”, and “giving people greater control over their data”. In this post, you will find a breakdown of important points and what this new Facebook privacy policy entails, so you can get a better understanding.

1. It makes controls easier to find

You will find the implementation of the first major design in the settings menu, especially for the mobile interface, which makes it easier for users to reach information on what data can and cannot be shared with apps. Unlike before where this information is spread across different sections of the drop-down menu, it has now been shifted to a single place on the social platform. There is a complete overhaul of the older version of the settings in order to facilitate this change.

2. Adding a privacy shortcut

Before now, it was not easy to find relevant information on ads, security, and privacy. Facebook intends to correct that with the introduction of Privacy Shortcuts in form of a menu from where users can access and control their information with just a few taps. The new shortcuts also give clearer explanations on how different controls on the platform works.

3. Users now have greater control over account activity

Aside from helping users in enhancing the security of their accounts through measures such as two-step authentication, these privacy shortcuts can also be used to review everything users have shared on the site, and delete the bits they no longer want to be part of the social media history. Users can see data on posts they have shared or reacted to, search history as well as friends’ requests sent. The privacy shortcuts also serve as a new and easy access point for managing the visibility of user’s profile information and posts. Facebook users can simply alter these controls for different segments of their profile and individual posts.

4. Users can now manage ads appearing on their feed

One of the most annoying experiences of late on Facebook feeds is the influx of ads and sponsored content. With the new privacy policy, users now have the option to control the ads they want to see. The ads preferences option gives users some sort of insight on how advertisements work on the platform and options to manage these ads. The best part about this feature is that users will now be able to manage information that Facebook algorithms use to pick out suggestions and ads.

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5. Users can now find, download or delete their data

If you have been on Facebook for a long, you will discover that the platform has been a goldmine of your personal data. The social media giant has introduced the “Access Your Information” feature as part of its new privacy policy, which according to the company is a “secure way for people to access and manage their information”. This means that users can actually view their activity history of Facebook, including posts, photos, contacts uploaded, comments, reactions, search history, a lot more easily. To add to that, you can also download this data in form of a secure copy and delete whatever you wish to get rid of.

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In a blog post that detailed Facebook’s new privacy policy, the social media giant has also reiterated its commitment to telling people how their data is being used and collects, in a language they can easily understand. We hope all these translate into truly “transparent” Terms of Service, apart from legal jargon and long-winding confusing sentences. For now, people are waiting and watching on how well this new push by Facebook attempts to rebuild trust.