Two privacy advocates questioned the Facebook effort. Facebook is under pressure from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and E.U. officials to protect privacy, said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy.

"CDD believes there is a fundamental disconnect between what Facebook says to its users regarding their privacy and how the platform actually operates and captures user data (including for its social advertising operations)," Chester wrote in an email. "Educational tools are often used as a smoke screen to cover up practices which require scrutiny and regulatory intervention."

Facebook doesn't do a good job explaining how it collects data from users, he added. "Facebook is continually releasing new ways to collect data and target its users," Chester said.

In addition, consumer education is typically not an effective way to protect user privacy, added Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

"The devil is always in the defaults," Rotenberg added in an email. "Too often companies use these announcements as an opportunity to change privacy settings and business practices."