Facebook said that it is introducing new simpler and more powerful privacy settings for sharing personal information, responding to the increasing pressure from users about concerns of privacy.

The company said that the new simplified settings will let users control exactly who can see the information and content they share, and can also turn off third-party applications or websites.

The social networking site has introduced a new control to make it easy to share on Facebook with  everyone, as well as maintain its more granular settings for those who want to customise their level of sharing. Users also get the more restrictive ‘Friends Only’ or ‘Friends of Friends’ options for all the content they posted previously for sharing.

The firm said that it has cut down on the amount of information that is available to everyone. This information is now limited to name, profile picture, gender (though this can be hidden on the profile), and networks (should the user join any).

In addition, connections to pages, which were previously available to everyone, will have privacy settings that work for both ends of the connection. Users can prevent others from seeing pages on their profile and from seeing them in the ‘People who like this’ boxes on the pages themselves.

Facebook also reduced the number of settings required to make all information private from nearly 50 to less than 15. It has introduced presets that cover 18 individual settings for sharing with one single control; consolidated 10 settings on three separate pages; and reduced the number of separate pages in privacy centre from 13 to eight.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, said: When we started Facebook, we built it around a few simple ideas. When people have control over what they share, they want to share more.  When people share more, the world becomes more open and connected.

“Over the past few weeks, the number one thing we’ve heard is that many users want a simpler way to control their information. Today we’re starting to roll out changes that will make our controls simpler and easier.

The updated controls are expected to go live for all Facebook users in the coming weeks.