Interviewing Experts Staff Post: How to Manage Facebook Privacy Settings

Over the holidays Facebook changed their privacy settings, and in an unfortunate habit – they did it without allowing users to “opt in.” That means that whether Facebook members want the new privacy controls or not, they were automatically changed. And although they are a tiny bit easier to navigate, it still takes some work to reset everything. So, the staff of Interviewing Experts wants to help Facebook users to control what the world sees in their time line.

A Facebook time line is where member activity shows up. For instance any new status update, photos, photos that members have been tagged in, posts that members have been tagged in or Spotify listens show up there. Those settings can be accessed from the Facebook privacy setting page, allowing members to keep unwanted updates from showing up on their time line.

One of the questions that users often have is, “Who can see what I post?” The way to determine that is by clicking on “Public,” “Friends” or a custom network. However, in our opinion, that setting really isn’t as powerful as it should be. The best way to manage privacy settings is to click on the one next to the comment box for each item. But beware if the “Public” option is clicked on for a status update, it will default to that in the future. If something is of a personal nature, make sure to manually click it to “Friends.”

If a Facebook member has any older posts that were set to “Friends of Friends” or “Public” those can be changed from the status update box as well to “Friends” for higher privacy.

If a user wants to see what they have been tagged in, he or she should go to the Activity Log. There they can see what’s been updated to their profile and/or what they’ve been tagged in. From there, users can decide what they want on the time line and also who can see his or her individual updates.

Finally, Facebook will occasionally use members’ information as advertisements to their friends. For instance, if someone has “liked” a business or product, friends can see the user’s name under the advertisement. To change that, edit the “Third Party Sites” as well as “Ads and Friends” settings to “no one.”

Facebook is a great tool for keeping touch with friends and family, but it’s important to maintain as much privacy control over the account as a person wants.