In the latest Facebook privacy news, Facebook is removing a feature that enabled some users to be hidden from search on the social media website.
The setting, called “Who can look up my timeline by name?” enabled some users to not turn up in search results.
“The setting was very limited in scope, and didn’t prevent people from finding others in many other ways across the site,” according to Facebook. “Because of the limited nature of the setting, we removed it for people who weren’t using it, and have built new, contextual tools, along with education about how to use them.”
According to TechCrunch, some people misunderstood the setting to mean several things:
1. That people couldn’t find them on Facebook
It did hide you from search results but didn’t completely obscure your profile, which could be found through methods such as through a friend’s picture that has you tagged in it
2. That search was broken, if they were searching for a person and the person didn’t show up
“Over the new few months, users who’ve employed the privacy setting to avoid being searched by name will see a big announcement at the top of their Facebook homepage explaining what’s happening,” reports TechCrunch. “They’ll have to confirm they understand the change before they’re put back into name search and the privacy setting disappears from their options.”
People should remember that current profile pictures and cover images are always public, no matter how much you make the rest of your profile private.
The news comes as the graph search expands. The graph search, enabled for some Facebook users but not others, lets someone search for people through things such as where they live.
