Facebook has many different privacy settings, all of which I encourage you to check out. At the bottom of this post are links to two articles with more specific notes about the various options you have as well as some changes you might want to consider making. The goal of this tutorial is to give you one example, based on news from yesterday. The basic steps in the tutorial, however, can be applied to any change you wish to make.
Yesterday, Facebook announced a beta version of Publisher – the main place you add content like status updates and photos to your Facebook account. When you’re on Facebook now, if you see a status update bar with a small lock on it like this
you are part of the beta testing group. The lock lets you determine who sees your updates – friends, friends and networks, friends of friends, or “everyone”… where everyone now means people on and off Facebook. Yes… it really means everyone. People who already had “everyone” as their default setting (though that meant everyone within Facebook) are part of the beta test.
To change your default setting:
- Sign in to Facebook.
- Put your cursor over Settings on the top right. You will see the following drop-down menu:
- Click on Privacy Settings (If you accidently click on Settings first, you can then click on Privacy on the next page and you’ll join us for the next step)
- Click on Profile
- Look for “Status and Links” (four down on the list). Click the arrow beside “Everyone”
and select who you want to be able to see your updates by default. - Click on Save Changes at the bottom of the page.
You’re done!
These steps are the same for all the other Facebook privacy settings, with only the specific one you wish to change being different.
For more information, this post by Michael Zimmer on Facebook privacy settings is a good place to start. For some specific ideas on changes you might wish to make, check out Nick O’Neil’s post 10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know. And if you’re on other social networks, you might want to take a moment to check your settings there, as well, so you know what you’re sharing… and with whom you’re sharing it!
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Interesting article in the Dallas Morning News few whiles ago about a woman who was convicted of cruelty to animals. Part of the evidence AND fodder for the media accounts were her Facebook posts which were accessible to one and all. Even her FB pictures were “Public Domain” and used as part of the coverage in the media.
As a librarian and a mom, I warn one and all that if they say it on line, it can end up in the paper some day. In this case, it did. Lock up your settings, folks.
It’s true that you need to protect yourself… though in the case of animal cruelty, I’m glad that she hadn’t since it helped stop the abuse!
The assumption I make is that is that everything I do online could be discovered if someone was dead set on doing so. Still, fixing privacy settings the way I want them does prevent many possible, unhappy accidents.
Dear Greg, thank you for this. I’m still perplexed. I can’t get into my head the differences between the choices. And are they exclusive – like for example – if you choose friends of friends, does that also cover friends? I would guess so. But if you choose network and friends – then that means if I chose Los angeles network, it would be friends and anyone in los angeles? Also, how can I understand the settings as they may differ from the home page and the profile page. So, people only see my home page if they are a friend and I’ve checked friend for that. But then I don;t understand about the feed and the profile…I don’t know if you can straighten me out….ha!
Hannah
It is confusing, though you have a good handle on it. Friends of friends does cover friends. Networks would include, yes, anyone in the Los Angeles network.
The home page is how YOU view your friends’ updates and can click on all the requests you’ve been sent. It is NOT how others view your information, however. If you visit me (http://www.facebook.com/gregpincus), you see the information I allow friends to see. That depends on the settings I’ve chosen for all that information (basic info, personal info, education, etc.). That is how others will see you if they type in your facebook URL.
When you’re on the Profile privacy settings, at the top is a box where you can type in a friend’s name and see how they’d view your profile so you can see what you’re revealing. As for updates…
If you allow your updates to be public, those appear on your friends’ “home” pages mixed in with the other feeds they get. I see your updates on my home page, not my profile page, for example. I can also go to your profile page and click on your wall to see what’s there, too.
I hope that it a bit clearer… but if not, ask again!
hi, i want to know how do i not allow other people that i did not add on face book, to not look at how many friends i have and to look at my profile? all i want is for them is to find me and add me as a friend, not to look at my details.
Linda – under settings->privacy->profile (the same as in the tutorial above), you can control most of that. If you were to type in my FB page, you would not see how many friends I have, because I have the Friends privacy setting set so that only friends and people in my network can see the list.
I allow some information about me to be seen by “strangers” but most of that is controlled by me. That said, there are pictures of a few friends of mine along with my name. I am not sure if that can be turned off, but if you want that off as well, I urge you to play with all the settings and see what you can do.
For one way to check how your own account looks to strangers, you can log out of FB or open up a second browser and bring up your own page.