Hi,
when you have enabled Social Network plugin "Site members" become "Friends only". In backend Text issue and you will see still "Site members".

If "friends"="site members" than it does not really make sense and these should be split into two discrete options.

Social Network plugin is like Facebook (obviously more simplified), Facebook not have "Site members" privacy settings, so Facebook does not make sense?

Hi,
Reply 1
In this scenario not make sense something like: public, registered, friends, private.
Your environment is not Easy Profile, it is Joomla. We do not know how you want to use Joomla and how you want to configure it (Access levels can be set up in every part of Joomla).
Anyway solution is simple, you can simply change "Public" language string with Joomla language override feature, constant for "Public" is COM_JSN_PUBLIC.
You can go to Extensions->Language Manager->Override and override COM_JSN_PUBLIC with your value.

Reply 2
Sorry I have not understand well, you have a problem to change privacy settings after registration? if yes then please post me your site details, we will check your site (you can use the form below the reply in site details tab)

Reply 3
The privacy settings are ignored only for administrators, Administrators are those who have privileges to modify profiles, you can set this privilege from Administration->Users->User Manager->Options->Permissions

but once I change it to anything else from the front end and save the changes - I just don't have the "public" option anymore in the toggle

This is not normal behavior, all users can always revert privacy setting to "Public". Can you please post me your site details to check this? you can use the form below the reply in site details tab.