At some point last year, Facebook users who hadn’t changed their search privacy settings lost the ability to change them at all. As of yesterday, October 10, 2013, all Facebook users lost that privacy feature. Why? Because Facebook arbitrarily changes these settings to benefit themselves, not their users. Here is what they have to say about it:
Read over Facebook’s rather lame reasoning for this action. What’s the next thing that Facebook will change? We suspect that, unless you have set your post/status/photo settings to anything other than ‘everyone’, everything you post on Facebook will be just that, open to everyone. Every photo, every comment, every status update will be wide open to both people you know and millions upon millions of people you don’t. Change your settings now before you lose them completely.
On the page linked above, you should read the section about limiting your past posts. Here’s a graphic that they use:
This is a way to set all of your past posts to Friends Only or Friends of Friends, depending on your preferences.
When you are making a new post, whether it be a status update, a photo/album or something that you’re sharing, be sure to set the privacy level that you feel secure with. Here’s a graphic about how to do that:
Adjust these setting now before you lose the ability to change them at all.
We’ve just read that Twitter is now more popular among teens than Facebook is. Teens, the original audience for Facebook, seem to have moved on, leaving Facebook to their parents and grandparents. You can bet that Facebook will ramp up their privacy changes in the near future to eliminate that privacy altogether. Read through our posts and figure out how to change your settings to match your own level of security. It looks as if those who don’t use the settings, lose them completely. Don’t let this happen to you.
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We’ve covered a lot this week, haven’t we? The final step is outlining what you can control and what you can’t. Before we begin, take a look at this:
It looks like anything can be seen by anyone, right?
Take this as a warning. As far as actions go, even if you remove something from your timeline, it still might be seen elsewhere on Facebook. Let’s just say that Facebook’s privacy control is full of holes. Therefore, expect the worst. If you feel that something you’re about to do is risky, don’t do it.
Things you can control completely, more or less:
1. Photos you post yourself that are NOT profile pic thumbnails or timeline cover photos. Every other photo can be limited to you or to some friends or to everyone on Facebook. Profile pic thumbnails and timeline covers are PUBLIC. Anyone who you have not blocked can see them.
2. Videos that you post. You can set the privacy for any video when you post it or after the fact. The key word is POST. If you share something, you cannot control who sees it.
3. Notes that you post. Again, you can set the privacy when you post the note or afterwards.
4. Status updates. The last thing you can control, more or less completely, are your status updates.
5. Likes/Interests. By likes we mean pages that you like, musicians, movies, books that you like, etc. You can hide some or all of them. We’ve written many posts on this explaining how to do it, how to get them back and so on. Use the search box on any page to bring up the instructional posts on this topic.
Get used to using this box when you are posting anything on Facebook:
Use this box for everything you post on Facebook.
Things you post that you cannot control using privacy settings:
1. Timeline cover photos. These photos, the big image behind your profile pic, are PUBLIC. Anyone who can see your profile, even if you’ve hidden everything else, can still see this picture. There is nothing you can do about it so be careful what you post here.
2. Profile thumbnail pics. Your profile photo can be controlled via the privacy dialogue pictured above, either when you post it or afterwards. The thumbnail, the smaller photo that everyone sees, is PUBLIC. Remember that. Use our guide to protect your profile photo thumbnail: Profile Photo Trick
3. Likes and comments on things that someone else posted. This is the most confusing part of Facebook, right? Everyone seems to have a problem with this. If you didn’t post it, it’s out of your control. If you comment, like or share something that someone else posted, everything is controlled by the original poster’s privacy settings. You cannot hide that fact that you like someone’s photo. They will know it, their friends will know it, your friends will know it….well, you get the point. Once you step out of the relative safety zone of your own posts, you’re lost in the void that is Facebook. Be careful.
4. Mutual friends. While you can hide your full list of friends from your other friends, you cannot hide any mutual friends.
5. Some photos. Read 1 and 2 again, just to be sure.
6. The ‘About’ you box on your Facebook profile. You can hide some things about yourself, not everything. We’ve done post on this in the past but we’ll do another update soon. Read this post, Facebook – Get your Likes Back , to figure out how to hide or unhide your likes/interests.
Here’s something you should see, brought to you by Facebook:
Everything looks good until you read the very last line at the bottom.
See the greyed out sections at the top? You can’t hide those sections, at least not everything in them. Check or uncheck the other sections, according to your preferences. After you do that, read the line at the bottom. We’ve copied it here, just in case you miss it:
“If you hide a section, individual stories can still appear on your Timeline, in News Feed and elsewhere on Facebook”.
In other words, you can’t really hide very much of your activity on Facebook. You should look at your actions on Facebook in two different streams; things that you post and things that you do. As we’ve said above, you can hide most of the things you post. As far as the things that you do (liking something, commenting on something, sharing something), you cannot hide any part of it. Even if you think you can, Facebook tells you that it might appear ‘elsewhere on Facebook’.
Wow, it’s been a long week for us. Lots of research and some wordy but, hopefully, informative articles too. Please comment, ask questions, yell, scream or just say hi in the comment box at the bottom. We’re here to help, don’t forget that.
Facebook week continues here on Computers Made Simple. In our last two posts we’ve shown you the ins and outs of posting something and setting the privacy limits for it, then we described the various photo albums and their limitations. Today we’re describing how to adjust privacy for your profile photo.
Profile Photo Trick – As we told you here: Facebook Photos and Albums , some Facebook albums have different privacy settings than others. One album that we are concerned about is the Profile Pictures album. Your profile photo is made up of two parts, the thumbnail and the main photo. Everyone can see the thumbnail, remember that. You choose who can see the full photo. Here’s how to have a profile pic that doesn’t reveal too much.
1. Before we begin, remember that when you upload a new profile photo, it is set to ‘Public’ by default. You have to change that setting to ‘Friends Only’. The thumbnail will remain public but the photo itself can be made private. We’ll show you how.
The first time you change your profile photo, Facebook tells you that the photo is Public…but you can change that.
2. Click on your profile photo up on the top left of any Facebook page. This brings up your Timeline. Next, hover your mouse on the photo and choose ‘Edit profile picture’.
Hover and choose Edit Profile Picture.
3. We strongly suggest that you choose ‘Upload Photo’ or ‘Take Photo’ (you can only use this if you have a webcam attached to your computer.) The reason we want you to use a new photo is that you can edit the thumbnail much better with a new pic. If you use one of your old profile photos, this trick doesn’t work quite the same way.
Upload Photo or Take photo, both will work for this.
4. Choose the photo you want to use. This is the one we chose for this post:
An ex-sports star with his fleet of cars. Note that you can see his face in this full profile pic.
5. Facebook uploads the photo. Initially, this is what we saw when we uploaded this photo:
His face is still visible. We’ll fix that.
6. Hover over the photo again and choose ‘Edit thumbnail’:
We want to Edit thumbnail.
7. When the Edit Thumbnail dialogue comes up, drag the photo around until you can’t see or can’t recognize the person (you) in the photo:
Drag the small image around until you can’t be seen. Do NOT choose Scale to Fit.
TIP: If you choose ‘Scale to Fit’, Facebook simply makes a very tiny copy of the full photo and uses that as the thumbnail. In some cases this might be fine but make sure the thumbnail doesn’t reveal too much.
8. OK, we’re almost done. The new photo is set to Public, right? We want to change that. Click on the thumbnail and the full photo comes up. On the right, there are two Edit buttons. Both do the same thing so it doesn’t matter which one you click.
Two edit buttons, choose either one.
9. We prefer to choose Friends for the privacy setting. That’s up to you but we don’t advise you to leave it set to Public.
Friends, right? Better than Public unless you’re trying to attract strangers.
Yes, there are quite a few steps to this but we think it’s worth it. If you’ve got kids who are on Facebook, share this trick with them. Unless they are desperately seeking friends who are complete strangers, maybe it’s better to hide their face. Are we taking this search for privacy a bit too far? We don’t think so. If you had any idea of what some people reveal to strangers, you’d probably agree with us. Click on some Facepiles and see what turns up. You’d be shocked.
Thanks for reading! Questions, comments and problems are always welcome. Use the comment form below or Like us on Facebook: Computers Made Simple on Facebook
One of the best parts of Facebook is the photos that users post. Did you know that there are several different types of photos and albums on Facebook? Did you know that these photos and albums have different privacy settings? Well, after you read this post, you’ll know all about it. Stay with us, you might be surprised.
Types of Photos and Albums on Facebook
1. Timeline Cover Photos – These are the photos at the top of your timeline, the ones behind your profile photo. They are wider and taller than your profile photo. Timeline cover photos are public. They can only be public. Anyone who can see your profile, friend or enemy or stranger, can see that photo. Do not use any kind of compromising photo for these. Always use a generic ‘nice’ photo, one that describes you but doesn’t reveal anything about you.
Timeline cover photos are always public. Remember that.
2. Profile pictures – This section of photos is broken up into two smaller sections. The first is the photo itself. You control who can see the full photo, the one that comes up when someone clicks on the thumbnail. The problem is the thumbnail itself. That is public. Again, anyone who can see your profile, basically anyone you have not blocked, can see that photo. Don’t use a profile photo that reveals too much about you, that should be obvious. If you’re really trying to hide, try to rearrange the photo when you are choosing the thumbnail so the thumbnail doesn’t show your face. We’ll explain how to do that in a future post.
A pair of feet and a pool, nothing revealed here.Change the privacy for the photo but not the thumbnail. Remember that.
3. Photos of You – In spite of the name of this album, photos in it may or may not be ‘photos of you’. Every photo in this album is one that your or your friends have tagged you in. If you tag one of your friends in one of your photos, that photo will be in their ‘Photos of You’ album. Get it? The photo may be of a rock, a tree or a kitten but if you are tagged in it, it’s in your ‘Photos of You’ album. The privacy of that photo is controlled by the person who posted it. How can you delete a photo from this album? You can’t…well, not directly. What you want to do is remove the tag. Click on the thumbnail and the picture will open. Down at the bottom click on Options then Repot/Remove tag. Choose ‘I want to untag myself’ then click Continue. All done!
Just tags here. You can remove the tag easily.
4. Your Photos – This is a mish-mash or your profile photos, your videos and your albums. You can pretty much ignore the settings for this ‘album’ because it’s not really an album and you can’t control the privacy for it. Each photo is controlled individually or by the album it’s in.
Everything in one place but totally useless because you can’t do anything from this page.
5. Mobile Uploads – Here’s where the fun begins. Mobile uploads are photos that you’ve sent to Facebook from a mobile device. That’s kind of obvious right? What isn’t obvious is that the privacy settings for each photo must be set individually. We will explain how to do that in our next post, the explanation is too long for this one. Just remember that when you upload a photo from a mobile device, that photo may possibly be seen by everyone, not just your friends. Please keep that in mind a guide yourself accordingly.
Click on a photo and change the privacy settings one by one.
6. Timeline Photos – What the heck is a Timeline Photo you ask. We were surprised to see this album too. Anything that you upload to Facebook that isn’t in any other section listed here, is a Timeline Photo. Let’s say you come across a cool image on the Internet. You save it to your computer and upload it to Facebook. You don’t add it to an album and you don’t upload it from your mobile device, you just upload a single picture. Each of these photo’s privacy has to be set individually when you post it. When you post a single pic, make sure you set your privacy level at the time you post it. Otherwise you have to go back and reset it later, you can’t change the settings for the whole album since this isn’t really an album. Confusing, right?
Timeline Photos looks like an album but it isn’t. Each pic has its own privacy setting.
7. Albums – This means any album that isn’t one of the above. All of these normal albums have blanket privacy settings. You control who can see the photos and the album itself all at the same time. You can set it so one friend or one group of friends can see it, all of your friends or everyone on Facebook who views your profile, pretty much whatever you want. If you set the album to ‘Your Friends’, however, once you tag someone in it, all the privacy for that photo goes out the window. A tag opens the photo up to the tagged person’s friends. Remember that. Tags are a whole new ballgame that we will explain in another post. Tagging is complicated, too complicated to outline here.
“Albums” includes Videos and actual photo albums that you have created.
That’s all there is, folks. Every type of album on Facebook is here and now you know how to control the privacy for each one, at least those that you can, in fact, control. There’s lots of information here; we hope you find it useful. If you’re still stuck, don’t be shy! Ask us a question in the comments down at the bottom of this page.
