Tour of New Facebook Places, Better Communication, Less Privacy

When Facebook rolled out with “Places” last year, like many of their feature upgrades, it came with a feature called “Tag Friends with You” turned on by default. This feature would allow your friends to check you in anywhere, even if you weren’t there, and even if you didn’t want to be checked in. It turns out that the new Facebook Places brings this feature back, but you can’t prevent people from tagging you at all, you can only remove the tags from you own profile.

 

While usually, Facebook tends to count on the trade blogs, like this post by All Facebook last week about the changes, to spread the word about new features. Unfortunately, the average Facebook user is unlikely to figure all of that out for months, or longer.

 

However, this time they are giving out the information in the form of a tour:, which is a step forward in its communication strategy. Let’s just hope that they roll out all new features in a similar way:

 

New: Control Privacy Inline

 

There is still a privacy area to fine tune settings, but many of the settings can now be applied post by post, and can even be changed after a post has been put up. However, if you do most updates from an app on a smartphone, you may not be able to change them and new posts will be stuck on the last setting you posted with.

 

 

 

The New Tagging Feature: Who You Are With

 

You still have to go to Account > Privacy > How Tags Work > Edit Settings > Tag Review to chose to moderate this setting.

 

 

 

In your privacy settings you can turn on the profile review feature (see image below) and have Facebook ask you before adding the tags to YOUR profile. However, you can’t prevent your friends from adding the tag to THEIR own profile. Not ideal, but at least clear. In the last iteration you could prevent anyone from “checking you in” to a place, now it seems we have lost that choice.

 

 

TIP: While you are in your “How Tags Work” settings, be sure to consider disabling Tag suggestions if you want to make sure Facebook doesn’t recommend you be tagged in friend’s photos that Facebook thinks look like you (another feature Facebook turned on without much warning earlier this summer).

 

Facebook Has Moved the Places Checkin to Updates

 

The big news is that you can now check in anywhere you post with the nifty little push pin button. Beware that once you set this it is skicky and defaults to the last setting. So, coming home from a conference where you may have wanted to check in, you might use your smart phone app and unintentionally check in to your house when you just wanted to give an update.

 

 

 

Control Privacy of  Single Post

 

Actually this isn’t new, but it was great for Facebook to add it here. You can also edit each photo album from it’s “Edit Album” settings. So if you want to share photos of your kids with your Mom and not your social media friends, you can get that granular, or just with friends, or with a list of people.

 

 

 

 

 

If you want more information, go to the Facbook one-pager about the new Sharing settings here. What do you love and hate about the new changes?

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike license.