Facebook Eases Privacy Rules for Teenagers

SAN FRANCISCO - Teenagers using Facebook will now be able to post items that can be seen by the public, making it easier for the social network to turn a teenager's post into an ad that can be shown widely.

With the change to its rules on teenagers' use of Facebook, the company reversed its longstanding policy that users between 13 and 17 years old could not share comments and photos more broadly than to friends of friends.

Facebook said it made the change, announced on Wednesday, to let socially active teenagers like musicians and humanitarian activists, people the service has often called its 'savviest users,' reach a wider audience the way they can on blogs and rival services like Twitter.

But the move comes as Facebook tries to encourage its 1.2 billion users to share more information publicly. The company is locked in a battle with Twitter to convince advertisers that it is a better site for reaching consumers interested in events like sports, television shows and the news.

The Facebook move also comes as the Federal Trade Commission conducts an inquiry into other proposed changes to the company's privacy policies. Those policies would give Facebook automatic permission to take a user's post, including a post made by a teenager, and turn it into an advertisement broadcast to anyone who could have seen the original post.

Privacy advocates have complained to the F.T.C. that with those proposals, Facebook was violating a 2011 order that required the company to obtain explicit permission from its customers before using their data in advertising.