Parents who have a teenager that uses Facebook may want to take a minute or two and familiarize themselves with a new privacy change. Facebook announced that it is going to allow teens more options when it comes to privacy. This affects Facebook users who are between the ages of 13 and 17.

Previously, when a teenager joined Facebook, his or her posts were automatically set to allow “Friends of Friends” to see that post. The teen had the option to change individual posts to “Friends” only.

As of October 16, 2013, when people age 13 through 17 sign up for an account on Facebook, their first post will automatically be set to be seen by “Friends” only. All future posts made by that teen will be available to “Friends” only (unless the teen chooses to change that option).

In other words, this change allows teens to make a decision about whether or not to post something with the setting of “Friends”, or “Friends of Friends” or “Public”. Teens will also get extra reminders that pop up if they choose to make a post “Public”. The reminder will say:

Did you know that public posts can be seen by anyone, not just people you know? You and any friends you tag could end up getting friend request messages from people you don’t know personally.

If the teen reads that, and makes the decision to go ahead and make that post “Public”, another reminder will pop up. It points out, again, that sharing with “Public” means that anyone (not just people you know) may see your post.

It seems to me that this change might make teens more aware of who, exactly, can see what they post on Facebook. I cannot help but wonder if this might help prevent some of the online bullying that goes on. A teenager who has concerns about being bullied could make all of his or her posts set to “Friends” only. That teen could also remove people from his or her “Friends” list that are problematic.

On the other hand, this change also would allow teens to share all of their posts as “Public”. Parents may want to have a discussion with their teenagers who use Facebook and make sure their teen fully understands that “Public” really does mean everyone can see what was posted.

Facebook has made yet another change that will affect how private your Facebook page is. A new change will allow anyone who uses Facebook to find your page simply by typing your name into the Facebook search bar. Now is a good time to manually change the privacy settings on your posts.

Michael Richter, Chief Privacy Officer for Facebook posted more information about this privacy change on the Facebook Newsroom blog. Facebook will be removing an old setting that had the clunky name of “Who can look up your Timeline by name?” very soon. The decision to remove it was announced a year ago, but the removal did not happen until now.

He had a few suggestions about how to control what people see on your Facebook page. You are able to change the privacy setting of each, individual, post. Change the setting to Friends instead of Friends of Friends or Public. This can be done for old posts and new ones.

You can use your Activity Log to review what you have already shared. This allows you to easily find things that you would like to delete. Somewhere in there is the option to untag photos and to change the privacy settings of past photos.

The other suggestion is somewhat out of your control. You can ask your Facebook Friends to delete or remove things that are on their pages that you are involved in. Hopefully, your Friends will decide to respect your request.

It is also possible to go into “Privacy Settings and Tools” and limit who can see what is already on your Facebook page. Look for the setting called “Limit the audience for posts you’ve shared with friends of friends or public”. Michael Richter says this will allow you to limit all of those posts to only Friends “with one click”.

For a while, Facebook will put up a notice that reminds users that “sharing with public” means that anyone can see the post you are about to make. There is one exception. According to CNET, your Timeline will not be visible to the people whom you have blocked on Facebook.

Facebook made an announcement on the Facebook Security page that a bug has affected approximately 6 million Facebook users. This bug allowed user’s email and/or phone number to be accessed by people who “either had some contact information about that person or some connection to them”. From the Facebook post:

We’ve concluded that approximately 6 million Facebook users had email addresses or telephone numbers shared. There were other email addresses or telephone numbers included in the downloads, but they were not connected to any Facebook users or even names of individuals. For almost all of the email addresses or telephone numbers impacted, each individual email address or telephone number was only included in a download once or twice. This means, in almost all cases, an email address or telephone number was only exposed to one person. Additionally, no other types of personal information or financial information were included and only people on Facebook – not developers or advertisers – have access to the DYI tool.

The “DYI” tool is the “Download Your Information” tool. The short answer about what happened is that people were using it to download an archive of their own Facebook account. When they did this, “they may have been provided with additional email address or telephone numbers for their contacts or people with whom they have some connection”.

Facebook says it confirmed the bug, then immediately disabled the DYI tool. They turned it back on after fixing the bug. According to Reuters, the data leaks from this bug began in 2012 and were a “year long data breach”.