Managing Your Facebook Privacy– Eric Hoefler (Revised August 19, 2010)

Managing Your Facebook Privacy

With all of the changes to the privacy settings recently, the options can seem confusing, soI’v e put together this guide as a summary of your options with a suggested strategy for anyone who doesn’t already have one in place.

Locating and Controlling Privacy Settings

Your“ Privacy Settings” are located under the“Account” tab:

There are two ways to control your privacy: theaut omat e d method and thec us t om method. We’ll take

a look at the automated method first, then walk through the custom method with specific suggestions.

Automated Method

Facebook provides four automated privacy levels:

1.“Everyone” (least secure): This allows everyone on the Internet access to the information you

designate and allows third-party search engines to index that information.

2.“Friends of Friends”: For example, if you’re “Friends” with someone who is“ Friends” with your

boss, your boss can access any information you designate with this level.
3.”Friends Only” (most secure, except for the custom method).
4.“Recommended” (Facebook’s default setting).

Managing Your Facebook Privacy– Eric Hoefler (Revised August 19, 2010)

Each level affects 10 areas of control:

1. My status, photos, and posts: controls who can access the things you post or upload.
2. Bio and favorite quotations: part of your profile.
3. Family and relationships: part of your profile.
4.Photos and videos I’m tagged in: controls who can see photos you’ve been tagged in, whether or

not you took or uploaded the photo.
5. Religious and political views: part of your profile.
6. Birthday: part of your profile.
7. Can comment on posts: controls who can comment on items posted to your wall (whether

posted by you or by others)
8. Places I check in: controls who can see your location check-ins (through the “Places” feature)
9. Contact information: part of your profile.
10. Let friends of people tagged in my photos and posts see them: if a friend of yours is tagged in

one of your photos, this setting controls whether that person’s friends can see that photo even

if they are not friends with you.

For example, this is how Facebook’s “Recommended” option sets each area of control:

If you’re comfortable with one of these automated levels, select one,click “Apply These Settings,” and

you’re done! However, if you want more control or greater levels of privacy, read on.

Managing Your Facebook Privacy– Eric Hoefler (Revised August 19, 2010)

Custom Method

The custom method gives you control over additional areas in 3 major categories.To access this page,

click “Customize settings” near the bottom of the “Privacy Settings” page.

For each area (and for each photo album if you click “Edit album privacy”), you can select “Everyone,” “Friends of Friends,”o r “Friends Only,” which function the same as the automated options. However, you can also select “Customize” to gain even more control.