Facebook is a great way of sharing photos, videos, interesting articles, or even just a joke with your friends. But you could be inadvertently sharing everything you post with more people than you intended. If your privacy option is set to ‘Public’ and not ‘Friends’, your updates and pictures will automatically be available to anyone instead of just the people you’re connected to on Facebook. Fear not, it’s really simple to change. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to avoid this Facebook mistake:
Log in
Log in to Facebook and on the iPhone, iPad or Google Android smartphone or tablet, select the menu button in the bottom right-hand corner. Then choose ‘Privacy Shortcuts’ followed by ‘Privacy Check-Up’. If you’re using a computer then simply select ‘Privacy Check-Up’ from the drop down menu in the top right-hand corner.
Select your audience
‘Public’ means anyone can see your posts. But selecting ‘Friends’ means only the people you connect with on the site will see them. We recommend having ‘Friends’ as the default setting.
Press ‘Next’
If you’re using the Facebook app you’ll be asked to confirm who can see information from your profile such as your email address, telephone number, date of birth and even where you’ve worked. Just press the drop down menu next to each item to select who can see it. We’d recommend making contact information only viewable to yourself (as if someone wants to contact you they can use messenger, Facebook’s instant messaging service) and the other information only viewable to your ‘Friends’. If you’re using Facebook on a computer, this section comes up third after ‘Apps’.
List of apps
Now you’ll see a list of apps that are linked to your Facebook account, which of your friends can see them and if they have permissions to post on your account etc. Remove any you no longer use by pressing the ‘X’ next to them, and change who can see the app from the drop down menu. We recommend using ‘Only Me’, so your friends don’t get annoyed by multiple posts, for example asking you to send extra lives for a game. Press ‘Done’ and your ‘Privacy Check-Up’ is finished.
Related: Are you hooked on technology?
Individual posts
You can also change what happens with posts on an individual basis. To do this, when you post a status, picture or video on Facebook, go to the drop down menu and choose either ‘Public’ or ‘Friends’ depending on who you want to have access to the post – then hit ‘Publish’. However, a word of caution, it will save your settings for next time, so make sure you check the box carefully if you’re switching between the two settings.
GH Tip
You can change any aspect of your ‘Privacy Settings’ by selecting ‘Settings’ from the menu in the bottom right-hand corner of the app (or top right-hand corner if you’re using Facebook on a computer) and selecting the relevant option. There are two we think you should pay close attention to:
Timeline and tagging
Here you can adjust who can post on your Facebook page and crucially switch on a review service that lets you check and then approve posts and pictures you are tagged in, so they won’t automatically be visible on your Facebook page unless you agree to it.
Public search
You can stop your Facebook profile coming up when people use search engines such as Google to look for your name by selecting ‘Privacy’ from the ‘Settings Menu’ and then turning off ‘Allow’ search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile.
From: Good Housekeeping UK
PHOTO: iStock/Mixmike
