Wednesday, August 24, 2011

What the New Facebook Privacy Overhaul Means for College Students


If you haven't noticed already, Facebook is going through some changes. It appears that Facebook is finally answering the privacy calls of the masses and straightening up their act.

So what does all this have to do with you? You're just an average college student using facebook to keep up with friends.

Well.....it only takes one horribly drunken photo tagged by someone you barely even know, to realize something needs to be changed. Not only are you having to apologize to your friends for getting that plastered in the first place -- but you also have to explain to your Nana (who just made her "a Facebook"), what her sweet and innocent granddaughter is trying to accomplish half naked on a pole (are you a firefighter now honey?).

Luckily for you, however, those days may be over. Here is a quick rundown of some of the more prudent changes to privacy and how they might affect you as a college student....

View Profile As...
Want to know exactly what your future employers (or better yet mother) see when they visit your page? Now you can with this great little View Profile As.. feature that will be available directly from your profile page.

Tag Review
Simply said, grandma would never have found those pictures of you and your debaucherous behavior, because you would have been prompted about the tag and blocked it before it went public for the world to see.

Untagging
Untagging things has been a singular action to deal with many different situations, and now has been revamped with three different options to increase clarification in it.....
  • Untag yourself from a photo
  • Ask the photo uploder to remove the photo
  • Block that person on Facebook
This makes it way easier to deal with certain, let's just say maybe "stalkerish," situations that may occur, without too much hassle on the users end.


If your interested in learning more about these changes be sure to check out the entire Mashable article on the subject.