Facebook has eased its privacy settings for 13 to 17-year-old users, enabling them to now share photos updates and comments with the public. The change went into effect immediately after the announcement on Wednesday. “Teens are among the savviest people using social media, and whether it comes to civic engagement, activism, or their thoughts on…

Facebook introduced a new tool for advertisers this week that promises to give them even greater control over which audiences they reach on the site. The “custom audiences” tool will allow websites to gather information from visitors to their website, and then use that information to target advertising in Facebook on both mobile and desktop…

Yesterday, Facebook announced that it is officially ending the privacy setting that allowed users to hide themselves from showing up in Facebook search. Facebook removed the feature from people who weren’t using it in December, and now they plan to take it away permanently from everyone. Instead of users blocking off their profile from search…

With the rise of genealogy-tracking websites, it’s only natural that some people are sharing in-depth information about their family history and genetic code on Facebook. However, there may be unforeseen risks to this practice, as laid out in a recent blog post at VentureBeat. Some of these services, like 23andMe, give users the option to…

When the NSA PRISM online spying scandal erupted this summer, Facebook asked the government to for permission reveal how much information they’re forced to turn over to federal agencies. Facebook joined with other tech companies like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to file motions requesting the permission to reveal this information, though the Department of Justice…

Ditch the Label, a U.K.-based anti-bullying charity, released a report this week that found that 54 percent of “extreme cyber-bullying” happens on Facebook alone. Bullying has increasingly become a cause for many activists and rights groups who are looking to protect the privacy of minors on Facebook and other social media sites. “I think there’s…

Facebook published a blog post on Monday this week announcing that a small number of trial users would now be able to use the site’s Graph Search function to search users’ posts, status updates, comments, check-ins and photo captions. The feature lets users not only search through content on their own timeline but also on…

The shockwaves from the NSA PRISM spy scandal continue to be felt, as The New York Times revealed this weekend that the NSA has used Facebook to create “sophisticated graphs” of some American citizens’ social connections. The Times, which obtained the new information from documents leaked by Edward Snowden, says that the NSA can track…

If you’ve ever posted something on Facebook that you’ve immediately wanted to tweak or correct, Facebook has a solution for you. This week, the site announced that it would roll out a new feature for its web platform and Android Facebook app allowing users to edit posts and comments. Facebook, a lightning rod of privacy…

Jazmine Jones, a 23-year-old law school student, had her Facebook profile hacked last October. The cybercriminals stole 300 images from her profile along with her personal information, which they used to set up Facebook accounts saying that she was an escort. This kind of fake-identity scam is becoming increasingly common on Facebook. The hackers messaged…