Facebook gives teens a ‘public’ option with posts
Print Edition
Facebook is now allowing teenagers to share their posts on the social network with anyone on the Internet, raising the risks of minors leaving a digital trail that could lead to trouble.
The change announced on Wednesday affects Facebook users who list their ages as 13 to 17.
Until now, Facebook users falling within that age group had been limited to sharing information and photos only with their own friends or friends of those friends.
The new policy will give teens the choice of switching their settings so their posts can be accessible to the general public. That option already has been available to adults.
As a protective measure, Facebook will warn minors choosing this option that they are exposing themselves to a broader audience. The caution will repeat before every post with settings on “public.”
The initial privacy settings of teens under 18 will automatically be set so posts are seen only by friends. That’s more restrictive than the previous default setting that allowed teens to distribute their posts to friends of their friends in the network.
In a blog post, Facebook said it decided to revise its privacy rules to make its service more enjoyable for teens and to provide them with a more powerful megaphone when they believe they have an important point to make or a cause to support.
“Teens are among the savviest people using social media, and whether it comes to civic engagement, activism, or their thoughts on a new movie, they want to be heard,” Facebook wrote.
The question remains whether teens understand how sharing their thoughts or pictures of their activities can come back to haunt them, said Kathryn Montgomery, an American University professor of communications who has written a book about how the Internet affects children.
“On the one hand, you want to encourage kids to participate in the digital world, but they are not always very wise about how they do it,” she said. “Teens tend to take more risks and don’t always understand the consequences of their behavior.”
The relaxed standards also may spur teens to spend more time on Facebook instead of other services, such as Snapchat, that are becoming more popular hangouts among younger people. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, though, says the company’s internal data shows its social network remains a magnet for teens.
Giving people more reasons to habitually visit its social network is important to Facebook because a larger audience helps sell more of the ads generating most of its revenue.
Facebook hasn’t disclosed how many of its nearly 1.2 billon users are teens.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
