McAfee on Monday unveiled a new tool that can adjust over 100 privacy settings across users’ social media accounts with just a few clicks. Dubbed Social Privacy Manager, this extension allows you to control your privacy on social media by choosing who can view your posts and limiting the data these platforms collect about you.
“Privacy settings on social media accounts can be challenging to locate and confusing to adjust,” McAfee explained on its website. Also, the average person has multiple social media accounts, making it more challenging to keep track of your privacy settings on each platform.
McAfee’s Social Privacy Manager is designed to simplify this task. It allows you to change your privacy settings on Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, Google, and YouTube with a few clicks. McAfee said support for TikTok is coming soon.
“With Social Privacy Manager, you can better manage your digital footprint and control who has access to content you share on social media. This also means personal information, such as your pics from the last place you vacationed, cannot be easily found and used by cybercriminals who could try to impersonate you,” Roma Majumder, SVP of Product at McAfee, said.
For comprehensive protection on social media, we recommend combining Social Privacy Manager with McAfee Identity Theft Protection and one of our top-rated antivirus programs.
Many People Neglect Their Social Media Privacy Settings
There are about five billion social media users in the world today. While 58% of users say they only share content on social media for their friends, family, and followers, almost half — 46% — neglect to modify their social media privacy settings, McAfee revealed in a press release.
This inaction may be attributed to the complexity of social media privacy settings. About 55% of participants said it’s difficult to find or understand their privacy options on social media platforms, and 56% admitted they want guidance on how to limit the personal information they share on social media.
We share a lot of information on social media — knowingly and unknowingly. Scammers often turn to social media to gather information about their targets when devising identity theft schemes or phishing attacks, McAfee explained.
“The great thing with Social Privacy Manager is that you don’t have to be expert in the 100 plus privacy settings across social media. We navigate the complex and ever-changing world of privacy settings for you. All you have to do is select your privacy preference in a couple of clicks and we’ll do the rest,” Majumder said.
“This means you’ll have greater peace of mind to share your latest family snaps, post updates on loved ones, or connect with colleagues, knowing your private information, stays private,” she added.
How McAfee’s Social Privacy Manager Works
Social Privacy Manager is part of the McAfeee+ product line and is currently available in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, The Netherlands, and Australia. It’s compatible with different operating systems, including Android, iOS, Windows, and Mac.
To use McAfee’s Social Privacy Manager, you’ll need to choose a privacy template. Based on your preference, it will scan your accounts and offer suggestions on how to improve your privacy. And, with just a click, you can update your privacy settings. You also have the flexibility to revert any changes or customize your settings further at any time.
“The app does the work for you. And you can run it any time and update your settings as you like. In fact, we suggest running checks regularly as platforms can and do change their privacy settings and policies,” McAfee said in a blog post.
To set up McAfee’s new tool, visit the McAfee Protection Center and install the Social Privacy Manager extension.
Here’s a quick look at McAfee’s Social Privacy Manager:
For more news, follow us on X (Twitter), Threads, and Mastodon!
