9 Steps for Real Facebook Privacy

by peggyd • December 11th • 16 comments

Facebook is trying to make everyone feel safe and secure with their new privacy stance.  But no matter how they whitewash it, they are pushing their users towards less and less privacy.  Chipping away at it around the edges and making it very difficult to truly secure your account.

I’m all about being open on the web.  I’m on Twitter after all.  But I use Facebook for a completely different purpose.  And some of us have legitimate safety reasons for not wanting their Facebook posts or friends list to be public.  You don’t have to be in a federal witness protection program or be a victim of domestic violence, to need to have your geolocation kept under wraps.  With the new Facebook settings you MUST go out of your way to ensure your location is private.  And while you’re at it you might want to be sure that you really want to share everything with everybody.

1.  The key to being private on Facebook is to be careful about who you friend.  Duh.

2.  Make sure only your friends can see your status updates.  Go to Privacy Settings and lock down everything so only your friends can see it.  You probably already did this.  Here’s where it starts being tricky.

3.  Go to Search Results privacy and change your settings so that your status updates can only be found in your friend’s search results.  Otherwise, everyone can see what you post about by searching a keyword you’ve used.

4.  Make your friend list private.  a) go to your profile page (click on Profile at top menu), b) look for your friend list box on the left side of the page and click the little pencil in that box.  c) uncheck the “show my friends on my profile” box.  (Note, I’ve heard that this i not a fail safe method.  Some mobile apps may be able to see your friend list even if you mark it private.)

5.  Under Account Settings click the Facebook Ads tab, and select the box “Allow ads on platform pages to show my information to no one”

6. Be sure to go to the Applications and Website section of the Privacy Settings and see what you allow your friends to share about you.  To quote Facebook, “If your friend uses an application that you do not use, you can control what types of information the application can access. Please note that applications will always be able to access your publicly available information.”

7.  Keep embarrassing photos of you private by going to Privacy Settings–> Profile Information, find Photos and Videos of Me (Photos and Videos you’ve been tagged in), and check “Only Me.”  That way your friends can tage that photo you’d never want your client to see without you having to run around and do as much damage control.

8.  Stay vigilant.  Facebook keeps changing their privacy settings. Join a privacy fan group.

9. Be sure to double check your profile to see what it looks like. When I did I discovered that my gender and Pages I belong to are visible.  (If you care if your gender shows up, go to edit profile and uncheck the “show sex in my profile” under the basic information tab.)

Have you figured out how to make the Pages you follow invisible?  Do you care about your on-line privacy in Facebook?  I’d love to hear from you.

September 2010 Update:  Here’s a good way to organize your Facebook friends if you are concerned about privacy: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/13/how-to-effectively-manage-your-facebook-privacy-settings-with-l/

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  • admin

    Another place to go private: Pages & Groups. First, only friend Pages that you are okay with other people seeing. Apparently there isn’t a way to make them private.

    Now, restrict what information you share about yourself with Page owners and fans. You’ll need to set up lists to do this. Go to Friends section. On left is lists. Click on Pages. Assign each Page to a list that you have locked down to only share the bare minimum.

    What a hassle!

  • Damo

    If you do a google search for a person, and it pops up with their Facebook entry, you can see their friends there. If you keep refreshing the page (it only shows about 8 at a time) it will eventually show you everyone, even people who were previously hidden or unsearchable.

    • admin

      You can hide your profile from being searched for on Google et al. Go to Privacy Settings –> Search and uncheck the box that allows indexing on Public Search Results.

  • Sharon

    @admin – page owners and group admins don’t have access to fans/members’ Facebook profile beyond what’s viewable in the person’s public search profile on Facebook.
    @Peggy – ALL publicly viewable search profiles now include Pages the person is a fan of, because there is now NO way the person can adjust their settings to hide these. Most Facebook users aren’t yet aware of this. I’ve very reluctantly removed myself as a fan from all Pages except those that are campaigning around this problem. The only other way to address the issue would have been to hide myself entirely from Facebook search.

    • Peggy

      Sharon — I think it’s confusing about what the Page owners can see. Since you can add them to lists and customize what information each list sees, I assume that they will see your status updates, photos, etc unless you restrict the information on the list they are on. I’m going to ask one of my FB wonk friends to double check this. I’m also removing myself from many Pages because of this who change.

  • justin

    hey admin… i unchecked the google index box… but guess what, you guys have already indexed it… and google “CACHES” everything…. i cant still get to it even though your dumb ass box is uncheck in my privacy!!!!!!!! you guys are idiots!!!! tell me how your going to have google “uncache” all those dam pages…

    • Peggy

      Hi Justin. I get that you are upset about the changes, so am I. It will take awhile for the Google cache to clear. And that’s one of the core issues to what the fuss is about. You no longer control the personal information about yourself on Facebook unless you go out of your way to make sure your profile and updates are locked down. Not an easy process but I hope this post helped cut through and simplify it for you.

      Side note: not sure why you are calling me a dumb ass. I have nothing to do with Facebook. I’m trying to help make it easier for you. So chill and send your nastygram to the folks at Facebook. (join their Page and then write on their wall.) But may I make a tiny suggestion, if you want them to listen to you, try being nice. You can get the same point across that way.

  • http://momitforward.com Jyl Johnson Pattee

    So great “meeting” you on #gno tonight! Love your site. Very useful information about Facebook!

  • Sharon

    Peggy, ask any Page owner and/or group admin, they will confirm that they can’t access user profiles or walls unless they are already set for view by “Everyone”. The greatest concern should the info available to third party application developers, particularly since 9 December when Facebook removed users’ option to not share their information with applications added by friends. See this article: http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Facebook-App-Devs-Can-See-Your-Private-Parts-68869.html
    A complaint has just been lodged by the Electronic Privacy Information Centre plus 9 other organisations with the Federal Trade Commission about this specific issue.
    The other big concern is the information now always available to Joe Public that the user could previously conceal – profile photo, Pages the user is a fan of, and the user’s entire friends list (you are right that despite claims that Facebook reinstated the ability to hide friends lists, friends lists are in fact still viewable by several means). Defaults that users previously set for current location to be Friends Only have been lost and defaulted to Everyone. I’ve seen several posts on group and page discussion boards and on Facebook’s own Page from users stating these (dis)arrangements have led to them being located by stalkers and ex-partners from whom they had been hiding.

    • Peggy

      Sharon, Thank you for all of this great information. I used Privacy Mirror and was happy to see that nearly nothing — except my fictionalized birthday – is available to 3rd party developers. The friend list is more concerning. It does tell a lot about you depending on how private your friends are. I’m a bit dismayed at the Facebook eating your children jokes circulating today. Clearly a lot of people do not understand what the fuss is about.

  • Sharon

    Sorry to labour the point about third party application developers but there’s an application in Facebook called Privacy Mirror which shows you exactly what information of yours is provided to third party application developers. It really shocked me and I am now considering leaving Facebook altogether or setting up a new account under an assumed identity (which of course defeats the purpose of finding and being found by old school mates and old friends etc.) I presume though that my info would have already been harvested.

  • http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=214995378543 Radek

    I tried many things to hide pages from the public profile but unsuccessfully. I left many and kept only the neutral ones. I managed to remove everything else from the public profile but this.
    Moreover, I never understood the real advantage of having this information public…
    If you are on Facebook and feel like joining our protest page (we are new), you are welcome to do so. You are welcome to post links to interesting facebook privacy related articles, to inform on tips how to improve privacy. A link to this article was added too.
    We are a group called Remove PAGES from default settings of Facebook public profile (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=214995378543).

    • Peggy

      If you have a business, it’s expecially critical to be careful which pages you join. I recently came across a business page that was a fan of a number of porn star pages. Since his personal page was private, I can only assume he didn’t realize that his pages were public.

      Clean up your applications: Another new issue I came across since I wrote this is in applications. It’s a good time to look and see what applications you’ve given access to your account information. Many applications have permission to pull your data even when you are not using them. Go to settings –> Application settings –> change “show” to show all “authorized” applications. You’ll be surprised at how many are in there. You may want to delete some of them or at least change your settings so they are only accessible by friends.

  • Jenn

    THANKS PEGGY. Man, I went into the apps… and the different pages… like “Flair” or some of those main apps, when you go into edit permissions, they are set to “EVERYONE”… and they are also set to “access my information even when I’m not using the app” I had to go in and individually change then all to “just me” or “only friends” and unclick the access my info tab. YIKES

  • Jena Brecht

    This is a interesting article. Looking forward to reading more of your outputs.

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