Facebook urges users to update privacy settings

By Ben Hurst on Dec 10, 09 01:58 PM

Facebook today urged its users to review and update their privacy settings.

The social network is providing ways of letting people have more control over the information they put on the site.

Elliot Schrage, vice president of communications, public policy and marketing, said: "Facebook is transforming the world's ability to control its information online by empowering more than 350 million people to personalise the audience for each piece of content they share.

"We've always designed Facebook to enable people to control what information they share with whom - it's the reason our service continues to attract such a broad and diverse group of users from around the world.

"We're proud of the latest evolution we're announcing today and we will continue to innovate to serve users' changing needs."

New features include added control for each piece of content that users share and simplified privacy settings.

By making selections in a drop-down menu, users can tailor their "posts" to specified audiences.
Facebook's current privacy model revolves around "networks" - designed for schools, companies or regions.

However, some of the regional networks like Australia and Turkey now have millions of members, which is why Facebook is moving toward a more personalised system.