Facebook is relaxing its rules for teenagers . The 13- to 17-year-old set now has the option to share photos , updates and comments with the general public on Facebook . That means strangers , and companies collecting data for advertisers and marketing companies , will be able to see select posts . Teenagers will also be able to turn on the Follow feature for their profiles , which would allow anyone they 're not friends with to see their public posts in the main news feed . The changes will take effect immediately , the company announced in a blog post . The new setting might help Facebook compete against other social networks that skew younger , and having public data on teens will also help the company appeal to advertisers . The social network is trying to balance the less strict settings with two other privacy protections . When new underage users sign up for a Facebook account , their posts will be shown to a more limited audience by default -- only to friends instead of friends of friends . If a teen decides to change the setting to Public , she or he will see a pair of pop-up warnings explaining what `` public '' means . One warns they could end up `` getting friend requests and messages from people they do n't know personally . '' Default settings for existing teens with profiles wo n't change or affect past posts . Privacy ? Forget it , we 're all celebrities online now . Facebook has been around for more than nine years and stopped being a hip place for kids long ago when it was invaded by parents , grandparents and advertisers . It has 1.2 billion users . Even as it expands to all ages , the company has to work to hang on to the coveted teen demographic . In a recent Pew study , teens reported `` waning enthusiasm '' for the social network , citing the presence of adults and drama . The site has become too important to typical teen life to abandon , so 94 % of teens on social media have a Facebook account , and the average teen user has 300 friends . Other social networks such as Twitter , Tumblr and Last.fm do n't prevent teens from posting publicly . However , if someone under 18 wanted to bypass the setting on Facebook before today , they could easily lie about their age when signing up for an account . Children under 13 are not officially allowed to sign up for a Facebook account , though they can skirt the rules in the same way . When someone underage does sign up for an account , Facebook assumes they have the permission of at least one guardian but does not verify it in any way . Young people and social media : Docs examine pitfalls .
Facebook now allows teens to post photos and updates to the general public . The company wants to compete against younger social networks and appeal to advertisers . Stricter sharing will be the default , warnings will pop up before post is made public .