Facebook has begun pushing new privacy policies and measures, as a way to gain user’s trust.  The social media site has been seeing a steady drop in user numbers, especially among the younger crowd.  

This decline is in part a result of Facebook’s notoriously murky and questionable privacy policies.  The site has had a history of updating its privacy settings without warning or explanation, and withholding certain policy information while maintaining a general disregard for user privacy.  All of this was a lightning rod for criticism and unrest among Facebook’s user base.  

Now, Mike Nowak, a project manager on Facebook’s privacy team, has stated that the company is well aware of the criticism and is working to alleviate them as best they can.  

“There's an unpleasant surprise when you share things thinking that they're going to be seen by one audience and then somebody you didn't expect interacts with that.  When people have an unpleasant surprise like this, it's bad for them and it's bad for us,”  Nowak explains.  

Facebook will now incorporate more feedback from users to help strengthen and solidify privacy settings, such as making old cover photos hidden to the public.  More changes include additional options and explanations on the drop-down privacy menu for each post, and a pop-up reminder that reminds the poster to pay attention to the audience setting.  

For further information on Facebook’s privacy updates, check out Mashable.