Facebook users under the age of 18 can now make their posts open to the public after the company introduced its  latest update.

According to the Californian social giant, the changes, which will allow teenagers to share content with anyone who has an internet connection, have come in response to user demand.

Previously, those aged between 13 and 17 could only make their posts viewable for ‘friends of friends’. Despite the update, posts made by teenage users will be set, by default, to ‘friends’ only.

The update puts Facebook alongside its main rivals, like Twitter, on which users’ posts are set to public as standard.

Facebook UK’s director of policy, Simon Milner, said that one of the most common requests to come from its young following was to allow public posts, with many profile owners citing their ability to publish in this way on other platforms.

He went on to claim that teenagers are among the “savviest” of the site’s users and are just looking to be heard.

While some commentators have expressed concern about youngsters being left vulnerable by the ability to post so openly, Facebook stated that it takes the safety of its teenage users “very seriously” and explained that, as part of the new changes, those posting content will be reminded of who will be able to see it before it goes live.

The alteration is thought to be part of Facebook’s attempt to improve the social experience for younger users, who make up a large part of its target audience.

Milner said that the teenagers are in total control of who is able to see what they’re up to on the site. The company wanted to allow these users to benefit from social networking in a number of new ways.

Graeme Parton

Graeme has experience creating content for online sources and for the radio, and at university he studied Multimedia Journalism.