Facebook has introduced a set of new safety and security tools and resources. This starts with a newly redesigned Family Safety Center.
At the Family Safety Center, users can find articles related to safety and privacy. It has sections on the company’s philosophy, the community, tools/resources, parents, teens, teachers, and law enforcement, as well as direct links to relevant Facebook Pages, which can be “liked” for continuous updates.
The company says it will also be providing a downloadable guide for teachers in the coming weeks.
“We also recently unveiled a new social reporting tool that allows people to notify a member of their community, in addition to Facebook, when they see something they don’t like,” says Facebook’s Arturo Bejar, a director of engineering. “Safety and child psychology experts tell us that online issues are frequently a reflection of what is happening offline. By encouraging people to seek help from friends, we hope that many of these situations can be resolved face to face. The impact has been encouraging, and we’re now expanding social reporting to other major sections of Facebook, including Profiles, Pages and Groups.”
The company says that the report flows are in place for photos and wall posts, but they plan to extend the functionality to Profiles, Groups, Pages, and events.
A couple months back, we found that Facebook was working with the National Eating Disorders Asosociation on a content removal mechanism. At the time, a company spokesperson told us, “We don’t have anything specific to share, but we work with a variety of Internet safety groups in conjunction with our Safety Advisory Board to constantly refine and improve our reporting infrastructure and FAQs to provide a safe environment for all our users.”
As part of the new announcement, Facebook has introduced “Two Factor Authentication” to help prevent unauthorized access to accounts. “If you turn this new feature on, we’ll ask you to enter a code anytime you try to log into Facebook from a new device. This additional security helps confirm that it’s really you trying to log in,” says Bejar.
Earlier this year, Facebook launched its HTTPS support to provide a more secure experience for users.