Facebook has been working on many improvements lately. This October alone, we learned that it’s changing mobile profiles, enhancing ‘Videos’, and testing out a Shopping feature on mobile and “Reactions” buttons in Spain and Ireland. The top social network now also allows news feed reading despite slow connection and doodling on photos before posting. On the corporate side, the company has partnered with Eutelsat to launch Internet for Africa next year.
That’s a lot for this month but apparently, there’s more. The social media website just announced the new Facebook Search. This particular update expands the coverage of search to public posts. This means everything you’ve posted in the past, the public entries, can be searched by other people when they enter particular keywords. Searching on Facebook used to be limited to your contacts but now, anyone can see what you have to say especially if they are not set to private.
This update makes Facebook more search-friendly. Maybe still not yet in Google Search level but searching for a keyword is easier now and will probably yield more relevant results compared to before. Facebook started to index both public and private posts for this search update and now, the company will make use of those indexed posts to share to the whole world. Don’t think it’s an invasion of privacy because you have the option to hide whatever it is you don’t want the public to know and search for.
The idea is for Facebook to work similar to a search engine but only within the website. It will be most useful for searching current events because everything about them can be seen. Soon, we’ll see new sections like “Top” for news sources or “Latest” for related posts about a keyword being searched. In the near future too, Photos and People will be included in the search results.
This can be pretty helpful to those searching for a brand, company, event, or news. People are always interested in what others have to say so searching for Facebook can given them the information they need. Opinions about something can now be searched for and read by anyone all over the world. Not that reading a public post can’t be done already but more people can quickly search for them now. Anything “Public” can be looked up, viewed, commented on, and shared. It’s a free world out there in Facebook but if you don’t like people snooping on your posts or quoting your words, make sure you go from “Public” to “Private”.
Facebook aims to provide the following: Better search suggestions, Search results with public posts and posts from friends, and Find public conversations with search. We get that Zuckerberg’s gold mine only wants to share more information and knowledge but not a lot people may be happy about this Facebook Search going public. Don’t worry though because there is a way to escape this. You can delete your content from being searchable by the whole world.
Actually, it’s something you should be doing already–CHOOSE your audience and DO NOT set your posts to “Public”.
Here’s how to set posts to private:
• Click on the More icon. In Android, you can find this button in the upper right-hand corner. It looks like ‘three horizontal lines on top of each’ or an ‘equal sign with three parallel lines’.
• Scroll down a bit and then select “Privacy Shortcuts”.
• Choose “Who can see my stuff?”.
• Set the audience under “Who can see your future posts?”. It can be your Friends, Friends except Acquaintances, a specific group, or custom. Just don’t choose Public.
There is a way to set the privacy of old posts too.
• Under the More section, choose “Account Settings”.
• Select “Privacy”.
• Go to ““Limit the audience for post you’ve shared with friends of friends or Public?”.
• Tap on the “Limit Old Posts” button.
There you go. You’re away from the prying public eyes now.
nice updating apps