Facebook recently launched a limited preview for Graph Search, a privacy aware enhancement that allows users to find any of their own or friends information on Facebook. Using Graph Search users can look up just about any type of information their hearts desire. For example, “My friends who like The Beatles” or “Photos taken in 2009 by John Smith.”
On Friday the company wanted users to know that Graph Search isn’t a one-size-fits-all feature. In fact Facebook has actually created the product to serve Young People in safer ways than older users.
Here are some of the responses posted by Facebook in regards to young people and Graph Search:
Teens and Graph Search
As with all of our products, we designed Graph Search to take into account the unique needs of teens on Facebook. On Facebook, many things teens are likely to do – such as adding information to their timelines or sharing status updates – can only be shared with a maximum of Friends of Friends. In addition, for certain searches that could help to identify a young person by age or by their location, results will only show to that person’s Friends, or Friends of Friends who are also between the age of 13-17.
Safety Tips for Graph Search
As always, when sharing anything on Facebook, remember to use good judgment and share responsibly. Learn more about tools to help control what appears in search below:
- Manage Your Activity Log: Activity log makes it easy to see the things you’ve posted on Facebook, make changes to the audience of past photos and other posts, and choose what appears on your Timeline. We recently announced some new tools that make it easier to take action on multiple photos, such as untagging them, or requesting that they are removed with one click.If you are ever concerned who can see content you have posted or shared on Facebook, review it on your Activity Log
- Review About Me: In addition to your Activity Log, review the ‘About’ tab to check any basic info you have shared with others on your profile, such as your current city, your workplace, Pages you like, or your education. The same people who can see this info on your profile can search for this info about you. Check this section to make sure you are comfortable with the audience you have chosen to share this information with.
- Reporting: As always, do not hesitate to report any abusive content you see on Facebook in the report links throughout site.
To get on the waiting list for the Graph Search preview you can visit www.facebook/graphsearch.
I have been personally testing the Graph Search since its debut and have found safety features and customized settings to be most useful. Facebook still has a long way to go but the program is shaping up to offer the type of semantic searching users are quickly coming to expect.
Should Facebook ultimately roll out semantic results for web searches on a broad level it could become a real competitor to the likes of Google, Bing, and other search engines.
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