Let’s start with the fact that Facebook currently registers over 1.5 billion search queries a day. As if that is not enough. They have 2 trillion posts indexed according to the stats given in a blogpost. As of yesterday, Facebook modified their search feature to include all the 2 trillion posts indexed and that includes all the posts you have made marked public by your privacy settings. As of yesterday Facebook Search FYI is available on both iOS, Android and on desktop.
Previously, entering a search term would turn up results for pages, people, groups, events, apps or trending topics but now the search bar can find whatever is being discussed in the world by putting the search term in the bar. Imagine all text, images and video on the most popular platform in the world is accessible to you. According to Facebook,
When something happens in the world, people often turn to Facebook to see how their friends and family are reacting. Today, we’re updating Facebook Search so that in addition to friends and family, you can find out what the world is saying about topics that matter to you
With the new search FYI, you will be able to find better search suggestions, public conversations and posts made about particular issues. Of course the elephant in the room is the privacy issues this new feature raises. Facebook assures us that we are in control of who sees our posts by basically changing your privacy settings as and when you so desire.
We see this as a jab at both Twitter and Google who’s platforms are built around search. Twitter prides in it’s self as the platform for conversations while Google is the king of search online. Facebook now comes from the back and builds search based on the content created on it’s platform which is really huge. We are not sure at this point how this will affect either platforms but we know that it is a big move for Facebook.
From this point on, you probably want to proceed with caution regarding the content you share on Facebook but that is now up to you. You can alternatively edit your privacy settings but the chances of that are slim seeing as very few even know where to find that setting so I would go for just being a bit more careful
Image: Mashable
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