Keeping Facebook Private
More and more people are venturing their way on to Social Networking sites such as MySpace and Bebo. Facebook is a big favourite with many of the people I know, and some would suggest Facebook is the realm of the more mature surfer, I’m not risking any comment ! Most people don’t realise just how public their information is when they sign up for a Facebook account.
I have found family members who were completely unaware that their dozens of holiday photos were on show to just about anyone on Facebook including the big night out and the tragic morning after.
Obviously there are plenty of people out there who couldn’t care less who sees their profile or photos but equally there are users who need to protect who can see their current status and latest photo album. Thankfully Facebook makes profile privacy a very simple process, you just have to know it is there and activate it.
To lock down your profile, log on to Facebook and click the ‘Settings’ menu on the top right of the screen. It should be just right of where it says your name. In the drop down click the “Privacy” option. There are a number of privacy options but we are going to focus on locking down profile privacy.
Click on the option for profile. We have marked it with the number 1 but the word profile probably would have been enough. This will display two main privacy areas. Basic and Contact information.
It is important to read through each of the options carefully. Facebook offers an impressive level of customisation in terms of the level of privacy available and allows users to assign different privacy levels to different aspects of their profile. For example you can let only friends see your info but friends of friends see your profile.
As you can see from the above screen capture, in this example we have locked down most areas so that only our friends can see the information.On less crucial aspects such as Wall Posts we have allowed our friends to post to the wall but only friends and their friends and see wall posts we leave.
The second area is contact information. We have locked this area down by firstly not putting personal information on to Facebook in the first place and by locking the essential information down so that no one can actually see it. We are working on the premise that most of our friends will have our email address and phone number anyway.
I always think it odd when I see new items appearing on Facebook telling us someone’s new phone number or address, this way we can control who actually sees the information. We are not Facebook security experts by any means but following this mini guide will ensure only you (and your friends) see your private information or the photo from last Saturday night’s over indulgence.
We were tempted to show actual examples of our own friends but thought better of the idea!
4 Comments
wow digmo! this is an excellent post. i’ve just checked my fb profile and tidied a few access issues. hopefully only my friends will be able to see my embarrassing photos!
keep on blogging…….
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That is a great post, going to do that as soon as I finish typing this comment, personal information should be treated more carefully, thanks for the heads up
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I spent some time a while ago sorting my profile out and even created a dummy account to allow me to test it as joe public, same network, friend of friend and finally as a friend. I am shortly about to loan this out to other family members to check theirs but I repeat my checks every time I add or upgrade an app.
Some friends are frustrated that I restrict so much until I show them how much information I can get with a limited account (friend of friend usually).
People should remember, just because you are my friend, it doesn’t mean I want to share everything with you or all your friends.
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Good stuff. I’m not sure about the details as I have avoided Facebook for the very reasons you are talking about. I love the internet but the idea that people can access all sorts of info about me freaks me out a little. I have the best of both worlds at the moment – my wife is on Facebook so she keeps me up to date with what our friends are doing without me having to bother with it. I will certainly be telling her to check her privacy settings.
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