SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook is lifting restrictions on teens to let them share more information publicly in a bid to regain the popularity it has lost to Twitter, Snapchat and other social networks.
Before the change, teens ages 13 to 17 could share information only with friends or friends of friends. Now Facebook is giving them more control over what information they share publicly.
“Teens,” the company said in a blog post, “want to be heard.”
With the new policy, teens’ privacy settings will automatically share information only with friends — but they will have the ability to change those settings.
Privacy watchdogs cried foul. Facebook says its updated teen privacy policy now mirrors its competitors’. The changes were to begin rolling out Wednesday.
About 94 percent of teens are said to have Facebook accounts. But Facebook has been overshadowed in recent years even by its own photo-sharing service, Instagram, along with other social networks that are seen as being a bit hipper than Facebook and where their parents don’t hang out.
