Social site Facebook has introduced a new feature that could help some of its users think twice about what they are posting.

The Californian company has brought in the  ‘privacy dinosaur’ – a small, blue stegosaurus that pops up on some users’ screens right before a status they are posting goes live.

However, the majority of people in the network’s billion-strong user base will not yet have seen the grinning Jurassic leaf-chomper. According to an official statement from Facebook, the pop up only comes as part of an experiment that aims to help users avoid sharing information with the wrong audience.

A spokesperson said:

“We frequently test new ways to help ensure people are sharing with who they want to on Facebook.”

The existence of the feature was highlighted recently on rival site Twitter by the International Association of Privacy Professionals, which wrote in a tweet:

“Are we the only ones who get pumped about seeing Facebook’s privacy dinosaur in action?”

The dinosaur’s warning asks the user to check if they are sharing their post with the “right audience”, reminding them that their privacy setting is currently set to ‘public’.

For Facebook users, altering the overall privacy settings of their profile and posts is a relatively simple task, but things can get risky for those with private profiles who choose to make a one-off public post; subsequent status updates will also be posted as public, unless the audience selector in the status update box is manually switched back to ‘friends only’.

Writing in The Drum, one industry analyst speculated that Facebook may have introduced the privacy dinosaur to stave off blame for its users making questionable decisions to publicly share “idiotic” posts.

Of course, for businesses using Facebook as part of a comprehensive social strategy, it pays to ensure that all statuses are posted publicly, thereby increasing the chances of content being shared.

Steven Morris