Facebook now allows its 13-17 age group user base to publish public posts (Jurgen Appelo/Flickr)

Facebook announced an update to their privacy settings on Wednesday that allows teen users to now share their posts publicly. Users within this age group were previously limited to sharing posts only with, at the most, the friends of their own friends.

"Teens are among the savviest people using social media, and whether it comes to civic engagement, activism, or their thoughts on a new movie, they want to be heard. So, starting today, people aged 13 through 17 will also have the choice to post publicly on Facebook.", the announcement said.

With advertisers and marketers hoping to reach younger customers who are more likely to become brand-loyal and are more impressionable than most customers of other age groups, giving users the ability to share posts publicly could give these advertisers and marketers more reasons to sell ads on Facebook.

Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy was quoted as saying -

“It’s all about monetization and being where the public dialogue is. To the extent that Facebook encourages people to put everything out there, it’s incredibly attractive to Facebook’s advertisers.”

The decision to relax privacy levels for their younger user-base could also be an attempt to stimulate the time these teens spend on Facebook, with a recent study reporting that "the presence of adults and drama" was a reason for teens' "waning enthusiasm" for Facebook.

This issue could further be intensified with the increasing competition Facebook has to deal with to keep the attention of this younger user-base, especially from other popular services such as Snapchat or Kik Messenger - giving them all the more reason to hope that this move will help them in this key demographic battle.

The announcement has, however, sparked a debate about whether reducing the privacy of children's profiles is a good idea – particularly with the many instances of online bullying that have occurred in the last few years.

Kathryn Montgomery, professor of communications at the American University and author of a book about the Internet's effects on children, was quoted as saying –

“On the one hand, you want to encourage kids to participate in the digital world, but they are not always very wise about how they do it. Teens tend to take more risks and don’t always understand the consequences of their behavior. The question remains whether teens understand how sharing their thoughts or pictures of their activities can come back to haunt them.”

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