- An Ounce of Discretion Is Worth a Ton of Privacy Settings
- Friend Management: The Key to Choosing Your Audience
- Controlling Who Sees What
- Keeping Applications in Line
- Facebook Security 101
- Reporting Abuse
- Phishing
- Beware of Links Bearing Trojans
- If You're Under 18
- Keeping a Low Profile
- Quitting Facebook
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Controlling Who Sees What
Facebook gives you some very specific settings for controlling what parts of your Facebook life are visible and who gets to see them.
Your home base for most of the settings you’ll want to change is the Privacy Settings page. To find it, hover your pointer over Settings (at the top right of the screen, in the blue bar) until the menu appears. Then choose Privacy Settings.
)
How to Customize Your Profile Info for Specific People
You can choose who has access to almost anything that appears on your Profile page. To start refining who sees which parts of your Facebook persona, Choose Settings > Privacy Settings > Profile, then choose the Basic tab.
The first control at the top of the page, labeled Profile, lets you choose who is allowed to visit your Facebook Profile page. Click the pop-up menu and you’ll see four choices: My Networks and Friends, Friends of Friends, Only Friends, and Custom.
)
If you choose My Networks and Friends, then in addition to all of your Facebook friends, anyone who belongs to one of the Networks you’ve joined can look at your Profile page. (This includes your regional Network, like Los Angeles; your school Networks; and your employer Networks.) This is the widest possible setting in terms of how many people you give access to—although it’s still only a fraction of the total people on Facebook.
NOTE
Clicking the Privacy link in the footer, down at the bottom of any Facebook page, doesn’t take you to Facebook’s Privacy settings—rather, it’s how you access Facebook’s privacy policy.
The next step down in visibility is the Friends of Friends option: Your profile will be open to all of your Facebook friends, plus any friend of one of your Facebook friends. It’s more restrictive than the My Networks and Friends setting, because a person has to share at least one mutual friend with you before they can look at your Profile page.
Friends of Friends
The theory behind the Friends of Friends option is that someone who shares a friend with you is part of your larger social circle, and someone you have a good chance of meeting socially. And at least one person you know made the decision to add this person as a friend, for whatever that’s worth. Keep in mind, though, that sharing a mutual friend with you is not a guarantee that someone is trustworthy, because lots of people on Facebook make friends with people they don’t know very well.
The next setting, Only Friends, is fairly self-explanatory: Only people you’ve added as a friend on Facebook will be able to view your profile.
The fourth setting, Custom, opens the Edit Custom Settings dialog. The settings here are a little more complex but very useful, giving you more options for controlling who can see your information. If you want to slice up your profile information and serve different segments to different audiences, this is the place to do it.
)
There are specific controls for all the parts of your profile on the Privacy Settings > Profile page (under both the Basic and Contact Info tabs). Each control has its own pop-up menu, and they all work pretty much the same. To find out what a specific control like Status Updates affects, click on the little question mark next to the pop-up menu, and a description will appear.
TIP
The controls for specific parts of your profile override the general Profile control at the top of the page. So, even if someone has access to your Profile page itself, if you’ve set the Personal Info control (for example) to hide that information from them, then it won’t appear on the version of your Profile page they see. This allows you to pick and choose what people see, without shutting them out of your profile altogether.
How to Use Friend Lists to Fine-Tune Your Control
Here’s one of the places where organizing your friends into Friend Lists really pays off. Some of the controls on the Privacy Settings > Profile page have additional options in the Custom dialog that let you choose specific Friend Lists to allow or deny access to.
TIP
The Networks you give access to in the Edit Custom Settings dialog are in addition to whatever you choose in the Friends area at the top of the dialog. So, for example, if you choose Only Friends, and then choose the Atlanta, GA Network in the Networks area, the total audience you’ve just given access to will equal the people you’re friends with on Facebook plus anyone who belongs to the Atlanta, GA Network.
For example, the Custom dialog for Status Updates has a Some Friends option in addition to Friends of Friends and Only Friends.
)
The Some Friends option is also available in the Custom dialogs for Photo Tagged of You, Videos Tagged of You, Wall Posts, Education Info, and Work Info, as well as all of the controls under the Contact Info tab.
NOTE
When you’re all done changing your settings on any of the Privacy Settings pages discussed in this section, you’ll need to save your changes before they’ll take effect—or you can cancel them. Thankfully, Facebook prompts you to save or cancel your changes before you click away from these pages, so you won’t accidentally dump all the preferences you so carefully set up.
So, for example, on the Contact Information tab you could choose a Friend List to share your mobile phone number with—so that only the people on that list have access to it. You might choose to display your work e-mail address only to the people on your Co-Workers Friend List, while sharing your personal address with the people on your Trusted Friends list.
Some of the controls also have an Except These People option down at the bottom of the Custom dialog.
)
This is where you get to put up the velvet rope that blocks access to specific parties. Anyone you enter in the Except These People field will be excluded from viewing the info in question, regardless of whether they belong to any of the categories, Friend Lists, or Networks you granted access to. You can type the names of individual people or Friend Lists in this field. If you already have a Friend List called Limited Profile or Restricted Access, you can enter it here.
How to Control What Gets Announced on Your News Feed and Wall
A key part of the Facebook experience is that when you do certain things, Facebook announces it to your friends. If you add a new friend, post a photo or video, write on someone’s Wall, or take other actions that might be interesting to your fans and admirers, Facebook may generate a story about it. (Examples: “Dave Awl is now friends with Becca Freed.” Or “Dave Awl commented on Becca Freed’s photo.”) That story can then be visible to your Facebook friends in a variety of places, such as the News Feed area of the Home page.
)
The Privacy Settings > News Feed and Wall page lets you control whether or not Facebook generates those feed stories, and which ones.
The set of checkboxes under the heading “Actions visible to friends” is where you can allow or disallow specific kinds of stories. I recommend leaving most of these checkboxes selected, unless you’re feeling incredibly shy or just aren’t comfortable yet with Facebook’s tendency to publicize what you do. (This “Facebook stage fright” is a fairly common reaction among Facebook newbies, but most people quickly become acclimated and recognize the value of letting their Facebook activities be visible.)
TIP
There is one checkbox I do recommend deselecting on the “Actions within Facebook” tab: Remove Profile Info. Facebook has an annoying tendency to report on tiny little tweaks you make to your profile info, and those stories aren’t usually very interesting or useful to anyone. And really, what’s the point of drawing attention to information you’ve chosen to remove?
The “Show stories in Chat” option allows News Feed stories about you to be displayed within Facebook’s Chat application. (See the Communicating on Facebook chapter for info on Chat.)
As Facebook makes explicitly clear on this page, there are certain actions that are never reported in Facebook stories. Here are the most important from the list: Inbox messages (which are private, as opposed to Wall posts); profiles, photos, and Notes that you view (Facebook doesn’t report on your reading and browsing habits); and people you remove from your friends.
NOTE
The “Show times in my Wall” checkbox adds a timestamp to each story, identifying at exactly what time the actions took place. Deselecting this checkbox will remove that timestamp from certain stories, but keep in mind that Wall posts and status updates always display the timestamp, regardless of this setting. So if you’re trying to cover your tracks regarding exactly when you were goofing around on Facebook, this checkbox might not help all that much.
How to Control Whether You Show Up in Search Results
On the Privacy Settings page, click Search. You’ll see a Search Discovery area with a Search Visibility pop-up menu.
)
The default setting is Everyone, which means anyone who searches Facebook. (This doesn’t mean they can see your profile—just the search result itself.) You can restrict your search visibility with the other choices in this menu, which work the same way as the Privacy controls already discussed.
NOTE
The Public Search Listing control won’t be available on your profile unless you choose Everyone from the Search Visibility menu. If you’ve chosen any of the more restrictive settings, the Public Search Listing control disappears from the page.
The controls under the Search Result Content heading let you decide whether the people who aren’t allowed to see your profile are able to contact you, and what forms of communication they can use.
)
The Public Search Listing control lets you decide whether people can find your Facebook listing on search engines such as Google, as well as within Facebook applications. Select the checkbox to create a public search listing, or deselect the checkbox if you don’t want to make the listing available.
)
Click the “see preview” link to take a look at how your listing would appear, which may help you make up your mind.
NOTE
If you’re a minor (meaning your age is listed on Facebook as under 18), no public search listing will be created for you, regardless of whether you select the public search listing checkbox.
How to Block People
If you don’t want any contact with someone else who’s on Facebook, you can block them on the Privacy Settings page. (This is an especially important step to perform if someone has harassed or threatened you in any way—right before you report that person to Facebook.)
TIP
Remember that the ability to look at your Friends list or send you an Inbox message may help a long-lost friend identify whether you’re the person they used to know—or just someone with a similar name.
Blocking someone on Facebook not only prevents them from using Facebook to contact or communicate with you on Facebook, it makes you virtually invisible to them—like Harry Potter’s magic cloak.
)
To block someone, type his or her name in the box, and click Block. Facebook will show you a results page listing people who match what you typed, so that you can pick the precise person whom you want to block. Click Block Person next to the appropriate listing, and presto! You’re done.
How to Opt Out of Appearing in Social Ads
Click the Social Ads tab on the Privacy Settings > News Feed and Wall page, and you’ll arrive at the Social Ads page. If you buy something or become a fan of a Facebook Page after clicking on a Social Ad, then Facebook friends of yours may see your name and/or face appearing in that ad the next time it pops up for them.
You can opt out of appearing in Social Ads by setting the menu on the Social Ads page to “No one,” instead of the default choice, “Only my friends.” (See the Pages and Ads chapter for more about Social Ads.)
)
How to Opt Out of Beacon Advertising
Beacon is Facebook’s advertising program that allows external Web sites to submit stories to your Facebook News Feed about purchases you make on those sites. For example, if you buy a movie ticket using Fandango, a message might appear on your Wall: “Harold Foo just bought a ticket to see Wall-E on Fandango.”
Selecting the “Don’t allow Beacon websites to post stories to my profile” checkbox on the Privacy Settings > Applications page opts you out of Beacon entirely, and no Beacon stories about you will be published on Facebook.
But even if you leave this box deselected, you’ll still be given the opportunity to approve or cancel each individual Beacon story before it appears on your profile. So if you like sharing your taste in movies, music, or other purchases, you might prefer to leave this checkbox deselected, and then decide on a case-by-case basis whether you want any given story to appear. Approve the ones you like, and spike the ones you don’t.