As I was researching a post on hiding your likes from the new-ish Facebook Timeline, I came across a little Facebook secret. It’s a bit like an Easter Egg but it’s not totally hidden. You can see it but just for a fraction of a second. As of this moment on May 11, 2012, the link is just a flash on the screen. Lucky for our readers, my hand is about as quick as my eye. Here are the steps to see the secret link that Facebook, for some reason, wants to keep hidden from its users:
1. Go to Account Settings (top right, click the down arrow to the right of Home and choose Account Settings).
2. Click the Edit your Timeline on the left side of the screen, at the very bottom of the left column. Here is what you are looking for:
3. Close the default open Basic Info box by clicking cancel or Save, if everything there is as you want it.
4. Click on the down arrow to the right of the word About and choose Timeline, as shown here:
5. You’re almost there. Click on the words ‘Activity log’. Watch the top of the next page very carefully. As the page is loading, you will see the following link appear then disappear:
6. Depending on your Internet connection, the time that this menu appears may vary. If you’re lucky, or quick, you can click on the words ‘Learn More’ and find information about how to edit your own Timeline to share or not share some items. In case you are slow, here is the link:
https://www.facebook.com/help/activitylog
7. As you click your way through the following menu, the hidden link will appear for a very short time then disappear. Here is the menu which shows the link:
While this may be a glitch in the Facebook page coding system, I have used three browsers in researching this anomaly and each one has shown the link for only a fraction of a second.
Why would Facebook hide this link from its users? As I said, it’s either a glitch or it’s done on purpose. If it is done on purpose, then it might be because editing your shares, likes, subscriptions, Etc., defeats the purpose of Facebook. Facebook is all about sharing, right? If you can hide some or all of the things you interact with, what fun would Facebook be? Well, that’s their own point of view, perhaps, but we all know that Facebook wants to know EVERYTHING about you. First, they make it tough to find this activity page, and second, they only display the link to their own help page for an extremely short time. This virtually insures that it’s all out there, everything you do while you’re on Facebook. Well, thanks to Computers Made Simple, you can take control of your own timeline, no matter how hard Facebook tries to make it.
Thanks for reading!
I get adjusting what shows in your timeline, deleting things from your timeline, and controlling what appears in your timeline in the future. But what about other peoples “news feeds”. Is that info directly related to your timeline settings?
I want to be sure that, as long as it’s not showing in my timeline, it’s not showing in their feeds. I doubt people are going out of their way to access my timeline, so that’s less of an issue.
That’s an interesting question. You can hide everything that you do, to a certain extent, by editing your privacy settings. This includes your past activity. You can access that setting in the privacy area then by adjusting who can see what in your activity prior to the new privacy settings of several months ago. We’ve explained all of that in a previous post. In order for you to control what other people see on their newsfeeds, you have to set your privacy controls for each item you share. You cannot hide ‘likes’ of photos or comments on photos or anything else. Those likes and comments are controlled by the original poster.
Here is what Facebook has to say about the ticker and the newsfeed: (from https://www.facebook.com/help/ticker)
Who can see stories about my comments and likes in ticker?
To control stories about your commenting activity in ticker and news feed, always check who can see the privacy of the posts you’re commenting on. Learn more about sharing privacy. If you aren’t comfortable with who can see the post, please don’t comment on it or like it. If you do, a story about your activity will be eligible to appear on Facebook, including on your timeline (profile), in news feed and in ticker.
Remember, your comments and likes are only visible to people who can see the original post. For example, you might comment on a photo one of your family members posts just to family. A friend of yours who cannot already view the photo will not see a story in ticker about your comment.
Please note that unsubscribing from a friend’s ‘comments and likes’ in your news feed, does not have any impact on whether your friends see it when you comment on or like their posts.
We’ll be taking a closer look at this over the next little while. The only real way to check all of this is to open a couple of accounts and see what activity you see from the other account. The ticker, of course, only shows up if you have been active on Facebook but the main page feed is there all of the time.
This is sort of a half-answer but we’ll work out the details soon. You’re right that the timeline and newsfeed/updates are two separate things. Thanks for commenting.
Thanks for the info. It’s quite a complicated issue, lol.
I see the option to choose who I share with on things I post, such as status updates. However if I comment on a news article, someones picture, or like something, I of course realize that anyone who happens to look at the same item can see my comments. I’m just always curious as to what is actually being “pushed” to peoples news feeds, and what isn’t.
I suppose this can be related to whether or not my friend is following the same person as me, my friends settings that they’ve applied to me specifically, and possibly other factors as well.
Anyways, thanks again. Great articles.
If you click on ‘Activity Log’ on your profile page, you can then edit everything except your comments on photos, videos etc. With those, the only option is ‘delete comment’. As you go down the list, you can choose who sees what on pages you’ve liked, apps you’ve used and apps that have posted stuff about your play, etc. I can only assume that this also applies to the news feed that others see but I will have to check that out using my other account. I’ll check that out at some point and post about it.
Thanks for commenting and thanks for your nice words!
i clicked learn more ….. but i didnt understand wht to do next :(.. wht i want is i dont want my friends to know wht i commented on my friends pic can u tell me how to stop it???
n i dont want my friends to know on which pic`s i clicked like
The ‘Learn More’ button is a link to the Facebook Help page for editing your Timeline. I was saying that I found it strange that Facebook was hiding that particular page.
There is no way to hide it if you click ‘like’ on a photo. You also can’t hide comments. If you want to say something that is completely private, send a message to the person. Any comments on someone’s photo are open to the world, depending on that person’s privacy settings. You can hide everything you put on Facebook, but you can’t hide a comment that someone else makes on something that you have shared. I hope that makes sense.
Thanks for commenting!
P.S. An alternative is to open another profile and use that profile to comment on photos.
This error replicated with me as well. I was just on the activity long page before I found your article and completely missed it. Plus, it moves so quickly on my browser, I don’t know that I would have ever thought that it was something that I needed to click.
Two excellent posts in a row. Thank you again.
I’m glad I was able to help you out. Thanks for commenting.