Facebook makes it easier for users to share less

Facebook will be making it easier for its users to share less.

Among the new privacy policies announced Thursday was a change to the default sharing setting for new users. Instead of their first posts aumoticatically being shared with everyone, even people they’re not connected to, the default will be to share with friends only.

In the past, the default setting for new users was public.

“We recognize that it is much worse for someone to accidentally share with everyone when they actually meant to share just with friends, compared with the reverse,” the company said in a statement.

Facebook also announced that it was going to make it easier for current users to understand what gets shared with who.

Over the next few weeks, users will see an “expanded privacy checkup tool” that will take them through a number of steps in order to remind them who they’re posting to and who can see various bits of personal information on their profiles.

The changes are expected to address chronic complaints from users who were hazy on how public their profiles were, and sometimes surprised to learn about various bits of personal content being public.

One new tool to help clear that up is “simplified audience selectors.” On the iPhone, for example, the audience for a new post is more clearly designated at the top of the screen.

The privacy changes come on the heels of a similar move last month, when Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg announced that he was going to start allowing users to interact anonymously with the site’s apps. Facebook will still know who the user is, but they won’t necessarily be sharing that information with the app developer.