facebook, reuters
A man is silhouetted against a video screen with a Facebook logo. Reuters/Dado Ruvic

Facebook has recently updated its privacy settings, enabling posts to be automatically set for "friends" only. The social networking site replied to the rising complaints of its users that their posts were available online for the whole world to see. The company's new update will automatically treat new users' post to be set for friends only or friends can only see a person's data.

Such adjustment to Facebook's privacy settings will be beneficial for everyone who has yet to sign up on the social media site.

"Anyone joining Facebook from Thursday will only share their posts with friends and family, unless they explicitly choose to make their information open to everyone online," The Guardian reported.

The change will only be available to its newest users and will not affect its existing 1.28 billion accounts. But Facebook will be prompted to undergo a "Privacy Checkup" for old users to adjust their own privacy settings.

Facebook initially set its users' privacy settings to "public" in 2009. It allowed the public to look into any person's information and posts. Online advertisers took advantage of the data they collected from millions of the Facebook users. Later, this issue concerned the public in the succeeding years.

The change in the privacy settings is not only made for new users. Facebook announced it is rolling the "Privacy Checkup" for the existing accounts. The tool explains to its users about their posts and where they go. The Privacy Checkup, which introduces a new blue dinosaur mascot called "Zuckersaurus" will show users their current privacy settings and allow them to change it.

Facebook concluded the change is for the people who only want to share and post with a smaller group.

"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," Facebook newsroom posted.