What is Meta doing to improve its privacy policies?

Meta has been involved in more than its fair share of privacy scandals in recent years, with the latest resulting in a privacy lawsuit that ended up being settled for $725 million. 

So, can you really trust Meta? The company has announced a few changes to its privacy policies in light of the bad publicity, although it’s still not clear what the impact will be. 

A Social and Influencer Marketing at UCLA recently posted on X that some new features could be coming to Instagram very soon, and it could make it easier for users to decide who gets to see their posts, with filters allowing them to choose trustworthy members of their circle. 

In her post, Lia Haberman said the “Close Friends” feature would be a good way to get people off Stories and out of their DMs and would create a “Close Friends£ feed experience. 

Another social media blogger, Andrew Hutchinson at SocialMediaToday said: “Sharing posts with close friends only is another step along this path, which could help users feel more comfortable about sharing more often if they know that only a few trusted people will see that update. 

It’s not a major change, and functionally, it’s not a big shift either. But it would provide another option to facilitate more enclosed group discussion, which could help IG lean into the latest behavioral trends.”

However, overall, Meta’s apps, which include Instagram, Facebook, Facebook Messenger, and Threads, are among some of the worst when it comes to privacy. In fact, one study found that combined, they track 86% of users’ personal data. 

X, formerly Twitter, got a much better score in the study, with the researchers finding that it only collected 50% of data at the moment, although this could change in the future as the company recently announced that it could soon collect other types of data, including biometric data.