Category Archives: Controlled sharing

Adjust Default Privacy Settings, Controlled sharing, Facebook, Facebook Secrets, Facebook Tricks, Hide Adding Friend, Layered Privacy

Hide Facebook Friend Activity

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For some of you, Facebook is all about who is on your friend list. That’s what it’s all about, right? We’ve shown you how to keep your friend list hidden completely or partially. Today we’re going to show you how to keep your ‘friending’ activity private.

Facebook’s privacy can be divided into two sections. The first is the things you have, such as friends, photos, likes, videos, notes, etc. The second section is the things you actually do while you’re on Facebook. All of the clicking, sharing, posting and so on are actions. Here’s how to hide one of those actions, we’ll call it ‘friending’. Friending is when you add a friend to your list, obviously. Can you think of a reason why that particular activity has to be public? Why should anyone know who you just added to your list? That’s your business, isn’t it?

Steps to Hide Your Friending Activity

1. Click on your name up on the top left of any Facebook Page. This will take you to your Timeline.

2. Once your Timeline comes up, click on Activity Log.

Photo of Facebook Hide Friending 1
Start with your Activity Log.

3. The next page lists everything you’ve done lately. That’s not what we want. Look on the left middle for the word MORE. There are two but we want the top one, just under Comments. Click it.

Photo Facebook Hide Friending 2
Click More.

4. On the longer list that opens, look for the word Friends. Click it.

Photo of Hide Facebook Friending 3
Click Friends to bring up the right page.

5. This page shows your ‘friending’ activity, adding and subtracting friends. Look up on the top right for a new icon. We’re not sure what the icon represents but click it anyway.

Photo of Hide Facebook Friending 4
What do you think this icon represents?

6. To hide your activity, uncheck everything that can be unchecked. One choice can’t be unchecked, simply because when you add a friend, you have to be able to see their profile. If that’s hidden, how would you know who your friends are?

Photo of Hide Facebook Friending 5
To hide everything you can, make sure your box looks like this.

7. Your choices in this box will only take affect from this point on, it won’t hide your past activity. For that, go down the list and choose ‘Hidden from Timeline’ for anything that you might want to hide. As you know, or as you should know, Facebook has little warnings here and there about the stuff you try to hide. Here’s what they have to say about all of this:

Photo of Hide Facebook Friending 6
A reminder from Facebook. You can hide YOUR friend list but what if your friends don’t hide theirs?

 

We hope we’ve given something to think about over the last two weeks. Even if you don’t agree with our suggestions on hiding everything, at least you’ll know how to help your kids, your parents, anyone who isn’t tech savvy enough to figure it out for themselves. Good luck on your journey to a more private Facebook experience.

Thanks for reading! Join us on Facebook. Like our page and you’ll get all of our updates: Computers Made Simple on Facebook 

Adjust Default Privacy Settings, Controlled sharing, Facebook, Facebook Secrets, Layered Privacy

The Perfect Facebook Profile (Part 4) – What a secure profile looks like

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We can write all kinds of posts about what your Facebook profile should look like but we think it’s better to give you an example. We’ve set up a fictitious, but active, profile that we use as a test bed for our posts. Here’s the link to it:

Our Test Profile – Meet Jean Paul Clavicle 

This is where we test our Facebook group settings, our timeline adjustments, etc. Just this morning we noticed that we can’t seem to hide the activity when we add a friend so there are still many parts of this privacy set-up to work out. In the meantime, click the link and see what you can find about this person. We think you’ll be surprised at how little information there is on that profile.

Photo of JPC Profile
Not much information here. Check it out.

How did we lock everything down? We started by opening one of our Facebook profiles in a different browser. If you’re using Chrome, open your own profile in Firefox. It goes without saying, but we’ll say it anyway, that you have to have two different Facebook accounts open at the same time, right? If you don’t have two Facebook profiles, we think you should make one now. That way, you can check your privacy out while you look at one profile from your other profile. Don’t add yourself as a friend, OK?

Search for your real profile in your alternative one and hit refresh every time you make a change. Continue hiding things until your real profile is the same as the one in the link above. Everything is done from your Timeline so start there. Click the various edit icons and see what you can hide. We’ve given you lots of information over the past two weeks so use our site as a guide. Remember that you have to edit just about everything, including the apps that you’ve let into your account, as well as your friends, your lists of Likes, your photo albums and so on.

Think of it this way. Let’s say you apply for a job and, as more and more companies are doing these days, the HR people decide to check out your Facebook profile to snoop on you. Is there anything on your profile that could potentially embarrass you or prevent you from getting that job? If someone is your friend, that’s one thing. If someone is a complete stranger, do you really want them to see the album from your graduation party in Key West? Put future employers into the mix and we hope you’ll see why we’re concerned about your privacy. You should be too.

Photo of Shock Face
Lock up your profile and this won’t happen to you. (Photo of ex-future boss.)

 

Now is the time for you to ask us what things you want to hide? Our next post will explain how to hide your ‘friending’ activity. Just as no one should be able to see what friends you have, we don’t think they should be able to see when you add someone to your list. If you see something that we’ve missed, let us know in a comment below.

Thanks for reading! Facebook is always changing. Make sure you keep up to date with these changes by liking us on Facebook. Here is the link: Computers Made Simple on Facebook

Adjust Default Privacy Settings, Controlled sharing, Facebook, Layered Privacy

The Perfect Facebook Profile (Part 3) – Hide your friend list

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Day three of creating a totally private Facebook profile. By the end of this week, anyone who manages to find you on Facebook won’t be able to discover much about you, certainly no more than the bare minimum that Facebook says you have to reveal. Today, we’re going to lock up your friend list, at least as tight as you can. Remember that you cannot hide mutual friends that you have with someone.

Theory: Ask yourself why any of your friends need to know who else you are friends with. Think about it and then you can set your privacy accordingly. If you have friends that you don’t know very well, keep them from knowing who else  you know. If you have guys who raid your list of friends for leads, you know what we mean, you can stymie them easily.

1. Short and sweet, head to your own Timeline by clicking on your name up on the top left.

Photo of Hide Friend List 1
Click on Friends to start the journey.

2. Click on the word Friends.

3. Up on the top right, click on the pencil icon and choose ‘edit privacy’.

Photo of Hide Friend List 2
Click the pencil.
Photo of Hide Friend List 3
Choose ‘Edit privacy’.

 

4. In the box that opens, make your selections carefully. You can choose ‘Only me’ or any number of other options. If you’ve made a list of acquaintances, you can keep your friend list away from them, for instance.

Photo of Hide Friend List 4
Lots of choices here. Make your choice carefully.

5. Ideally, this is what we’d like to see:

Photo of Hide Friend List 5

No one else really needs to see your friend list, do they? Why?

6. If you want some friends to see your list, you can tune your privacy in quite a few ways. Friends of friends? Specific people or lists?

Photo of Hide Friend List 6
It doesn’t have to be complicated. That’s why we prefer the ‘Only me’ setting.

 

Finally, please remember that you can’t hide your mutual friends. Facebook does not allow that. We can see how that might be a problem for some teen users, but that’s the way it is.

Thanks for reading! Let us know if you have comments, problems, questions or suggestions. We’re very approachable. Like us on Facebook and you’ll get some good karma! Here’s the link: Computers Made Simple on Facebook.

 

Adjust Default Privacy Settings, Controlled sharing, Facebook, Facebook Secrets, Facebook Tricks

The Perfect Facebook Profile (Part 2) – Hide Everything About You

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You’ve all heard the term ‘need to know’, right? As in, that’s all on a need to know basis. Well, Facebook loves to know all about you. That way it can streamline its ads to fit your demographic. The problem is that strangers can find all about you too. Even your friends don’t need to know everything. If some of them already have your phone number and email, why would you need to share that information on Facebook? Here’s how to hide as much as you can. Before we begin, make sure you ask yourself, “Who needs to know this?” when you’re filling in your details.

1. All of your settings for this are available from your own Timeline so click on your profile photo up on the top left of any Facebook page.

2. Once you’re on your Timeline, click on the word About.

Photo of About Facebook 1
Click About to begin this trip to privacy.

3. On the page that opens up, you’ll see some of the details that Facebook feels you should share with the world. These include where you work, where you live, whether you are married or single or if you have a family, etc. They also want your contact information. It’s up to you, of course, but we don’t think you should just open yourself up to everyone.

Photo of About Facebook 2
This all should be on a need to know basis.

4. For each section in this area, there is an icon on the top right that allows you to edit each of them. There are two parts to this editing. First, you can fill in the information and then you can set the audience for that information. The question you have to ask yourself is whether your friends need to know all of this or whether complete strangers need to know it.

5. If you’re unemployed and looking for work or if you’re single and looking for a partner, you might want to fill out more information. If you’re just a casual user, you don’t have to tell anyone anything much about you. Some of the stuff is harmless. Your favorite quotations or the section ‘About you’ seem harmless. You can tell jokes here, reveal some basic info but you don’t have to go overboard.  Click on the ‘See More’ words at the bottom to bring up the full section.

Photo of About Facebook 3
This is what you see when you click the See More button.

6. When you click the Edit icon, you bring up a form with blanks that you can fill out. Each area has another icon where you can choose who you want to share these bits of information with. We like to keep most things set to ‘Only me’ while others we choose ‘Friends’.  There is nothing here that we think should be Public but that’s up to you. Set your own limits but be prepared for the consequences if you open yourself up to the world.

Photo of About Facebook 4
Who needs to know what? We think that no one needs to know very much at all.

If you want to open your life to strangers, Facebook and friends that you don’t know very well, fine. We like to keep things private. We are what we post and share, none of this other stuff means anything. Your friends know where you are so why does Facebook need to know that?   They only want to know so that they can stream ads that you might click on. You’re nothing but a commodity to Facebook, one of millions of potential clicks on an ad, that’s all you are. Once you realize that, you’re well on the way to figuring out Facebook. Yay you!

Thanks for reading! Comments, suggestions and questions are always welcome. Hit the Like button on our Facebook page. Here’s the link: Computers Made Simple on Facebook 

Add Sections, Adjust Default Privacy Settings, Controlled sharing, Facebook, Facebook page likes, Facebook Photo Privacy Settings, Facebook Secrets, Facebook Tricks

Facebook Privacy Settings – Part 4 What can or can’t be private

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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:

Photo of Facebook Privacy Control 1
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: 

Facebook Privacy Control 2
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: 

Photo of Facebook Sections Warning
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.

Thanks for reading!