ISLAMABAD: Social media users are being urged to review their privacy settings and think carefully before sharing content publicly on Facebook, as the platform prepares to expand its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered search capabilities.
According to reports, Facebook is introducing an AI-driven search experience that will function more like a conversational assistant rather than a traditional keyword-based search tool. The feature is expected to enable users to retrieve information from years-old public posts, comments and other publicly available content through natural language queries.
The enhanced search capability could make it significantly easier to locate information that was previously buried among thousands of posts. However, cybersecurity experts warn that the technology could also increase privacy and security risks.
Experts say that if public posts become easier to search and analyse using AI, cybercriminals and online fraudsters may find it easier to gather personal information and exploit users for scams, impersonation or other malicious activities.
Users are therefore advised to avoid sharing sensitive personal information in public posts. To strengthen privacy, experts recommend limiting the visibility of Facebook posts to Friends rather than Public by adjusting the platform’s privacy settings.
They also suggest using Facebook’s “Limit Past Posts” tool, which changes previously public posts to the Friends audience.
Cybersecurity experts further recommend regularly reviewing privacy settings and exercising caution when sharing personal information on social media to reduce the risk of misuse of publicly accessible data.
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