Making Facebook Groups Privacy Settings Easier to Understand
Describing social networks as the digital equivalent of a town square and a living room, Facebook is doing more to make the public /private settings for Facebook Groups easier to understand and use.
In a Facebook blog post last week, Jordan Davis, Product Manager for Facebook Groups, points out that people need a public space to share information with a wide audience and a private space to share with a smaller or more intimate audience. Facebook Groups, in the past, have been able to choose: public, closed or secret as settings for their group.
Recognizing that “closed” and “secret” could be confusing or ambiguous, Facebook is simplifying settings for Facebook Groups as either “public” or “private”.
Davis describes the scope of the two simplified settings, saying,
“With two clear options, this new privacy model is much more intuitive. Public groups allow anyone to see who’s in the group and everything that’s shared there. With private groups, only members can see who else is in the group and what they’ve posted.”
How Existing Facebook Groups Are Changing
Here’s a rundown of what to expect as the previous three categories are winnowed to two:
- Facebook Community Standards and proactive detection technology will continue to apply across private and public groups, just as it did in the past.
- Admins can now more easily manage search discoverability for their group.
- A group that was formerly “secret” will now be “private” AND “hidden”.
- A group that was formerly “closed” will now be “private” AND “visible”.
- A group that was formerly “public” will remain “public” AND “visible”.
- Admins who wish to change a group’s privacy settings must (as has been required in the past) follow the restrictions regarding if and when the settings can change.
For guidelines on how to make changes to a group you administer, see: How do I change the privacy for a Facebook group I admin?
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