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.
