6 February 2013
By Joann Lee, Staff Writer
Facebook recently rolled out a new feature, currently in beta, called Facebook Graph Search.
“There are a few pillars of the Facebook ecosystem. One is Newsfeed, […] another [is] Timeline. [They’re] your place where you can curate everything you want to show up about you and it’s just everything about you in one place. Graph Search is going to be another pillar just like that,” Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, explained.
Graph Search, according to the Facebook page, is a search engine made specifically for the site that is structured around your network of friends and your personal profile. With this new tool, it’s possible to see things that all your friends have in common. These similarities could range from general to specific, depending on what you search for. Graph Search can tell you which friends live in your city, like Indian cuisine, enjoy running… the list goes on. However, this brings up a slew of privacy issues. Facebook rushes to address these problems on its Graph Search page, stating:
“Your privacy choices determine what’s searchable. With Graph Search, you can look up anything shared with you on Facebook, and others can find stuff you’ve shared with them, including content set to Public. That means different people see different results.”
This isn’t the first time that Facebook has released a new feature that calls for some tightening of online security. Timeline also displayed quite a bit of information, both old and new, which caused many Facebook users to proceed with a profile page cleaning to restrict others from what could be seen on their Timeline. But Graph Search is a broader form of sharing information. This means that everything that a Facebook user hasn’t marked down to a limited audience can now be accessed by the masses. This includes (but is not limited to) any pages you may have liked, groups you joined and photos you have been tagged in since the first day you signed up for Facebook.
Looks like it’s time to review your privacy settings again.
Courtesy of i2.cdn.turner.com