In case you haven’t reviewed your updated privacy settings on Facebook, now is a good time to revisit them. That is, of course, you care what Facebook knows about you and your personal preferences. The social networking giant has received a lot of criticism for their methods of obtaining user preference but recently released the new settings and presumably makes adjusting the settings easier and more reliable. The style in which this article is written is intended to be as simplistic as possible so that even the technically challenged member can understand the following material.
When you click on your account tab at the upper right hand of the home page, you only have five links to choose from and your privacy settings are third from the top. Go ahead and click on it and you may discover a whole new look for this section of Facebook. The first piece of information on this page outlines how you can manage the privacy of many features you are accustomed to using such as status updates and sharing photos. The rest of the privacy settings page seems fairly straightforward where you can select your default privacy to public, with all friends or just a selected portion of your friends.
The main section of the privacy section remains relatively the same as the previous version but it’s important to read and understand your options carefully. This section is broken down into five categories: How You Connect, How Tags Work, Apps and Websites, Limit the Audience for Past Posts and Block Lists. How You Connect, Apps and Websites and Block Lists appeared to have unchanged from its previous version so it’s the other two categories I will discuss for you.
How Tags Works gives you five options. What you decide to choose from these options are purely your own individual choices, but are they the best choices to make? Again I urge you to read and understand what the options you wish to allow on your Facebook page. Personally I don’t care much of using Tag Suggestions when someone posts a picture that looks like you but you can take it or leave it. Another option I wouldn’t use unless convinced otherwise is allowing friends to Tag You Into Places. My preference is to simply allow only myself to check into a place when and if I decide to do so.
Limit the Audience for Past Posts. The message on this option speaks for itself. My apologies for repeating myself but please read the instructions carefully and understand the choices if you decide to make a change.
If you are more of a visual person, and need to know more about Sharing, perhaps the short video might make more sense. It’s less than two minutes and might help you understand this feature more clearly. The Sharing Page can be accessed by clicking on the “learn more” link in the first paragraph of the Privacy Settings page.
If you are truly concerned about your privacy then my best advice are to control the type of games and apps you use. I don’t use any of the games and only a few apps but even then, I don’t know how much of my personal information and preferences are being sold to Facebook advertisers and other online distributors.
In spite of all these efforts that Facebook members can do, there are also a lot of spammers that will send malicious postings through your personal page. In fact one of my friends had this post on my page this morning: W0W l can’t believe that u can see vvho is vievving your proffile l just saw my TOP profile lookers and l am trully SHOCKED at vvho ls still checking my profile! You can also see WHO VIEWED YOUR PROFlLE here:
If you ever see something like this, DON’T CLICK ON IT!!! Not only are you setting yourself up for spamming, you are setting up your friends as well. Please know that you CANNOT find who is checking your profile.
Hopefully when you take the time to view the Privacy Settings, you’ll better understand the ramifications of what to click and what to view. Unfortunately whether we all like it or not, our information IS being transferred to marketers or spammers. If you don’t believe it, do a search on “Sanford Wallace” and see what pops up.
For a detailed explanation of Facebook’s Privacy Policy, please click on the Privacy Policy at the bottom of the Help Center page.