CHOOSE PRIVACY SETTING ON YOUR FACEBOOK

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                 CHOOSE PRIVACY SETTING ON YOUR FACEBOOK

Remember those privacy controls Facebook announced last week, alongside the rather less friendly news that you would no longer have the option to hide when Facebook users are searching you?

Well, those changes are finally here. As of 10pm ET, you should start seeing a small symbol with a lock in the top right hand corner of your screen. Click on it, and you've got a list of "Privacy Shortcuts" in plain English -- namely, Who Can See My Stuff, Who Can Contact Me, and How Do I Stop Someone From Bothering Me.

That's a whole lot better than what used to be in that spot -- a dizzying array of privacy options in a control panel that was hard for the average user to decipher.

"We believe that the better you understand who can see the things you share, the better your experience on Facebook can be," writes Samuel Lessin, a product manager at Facebook, in a blog post. All users will see the new shortcuts by the end of Friday, presuming the end of the world doesn't intrude.

More plain English changes are rolling out across the site. For example, when you want someone to remove a photo you've been tagged in, here's the dialog box you're presented with:

Given the abundance of holiday parties, this is the time of year when such changes are most welcome. Facebook  handy five-step guide to making it better when your drunken blunders end up splashed across the social network:

1. Visit the updated Activity Log to see what you are posted in
2. Use the new filters to see what photos are still out there that you may have hidden from your timeline
3. Use the multi Report and Remove tool to select those that you don't want tagged and click untag with one simple click
4. If you really don't want them on Facebook, use the new tool to ask whoever posted them to take them down, again with one click
5. Still have questions? Use the new privacy shortcut tool to type a question and get straight into the help center answers

Do you have the new privacy controls yet? Do they make more sense than their predecessors? Let us know in the comments.

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