This is Facebook week at Computers Made Simple. We’re going to highlight the various privacy settings that are available to you on Facebook. Stick around and bookmark this page or, better yet, Like us on Facebook to get immediate updates on our posts. Here is the link: Computers Made Simple on Facebook This is Part 1 of the series.
Posting Photos or Photo Albums.
When you post a photo or a whole album, Facebook uses your default privacy settings. What are those settings? Well, they are always the same settings that you used the last time you posted a photo or an album. Let’s say that you haven’t ever adjusted your privacy settings. In that case, Facebook assumes that you want everything you post to be public, available to anyone who happens to visit your profile, no matter if they are a friend or a complete stranger. Read that again if you want.
At this point you are faced with a fork in the privacy road. From now on, you will know how to change the privacy settings for everything you post. What about the things you have posted previously? Well, unfortunately, you’ll have to go back and change the settings for everything that you don’t want the public to see. There is no quick and easy ‘Press This’ button to change those privacy settings. Sorry!
Let’s make a new album and set the privacy to Friends Only.
1. From any page on Facebook, click the Post button if you have the new Facebook look or scroll to the top and click on the Add Photos/Video button.
Click Add Photos/Video then Create Photo Album.
We’re making a new album so click on Create Photo Album. Read this:
TIP: Facebook has changed its privacy settings for photos that you post to your Timeline. We would strongly suggest that you ONLY put photos in separate albums, NOT simply to your Timeline. We will explain why in a later post.
2. Choose your photos from a folder on your computer. Usually the default location is Downloads, depending on which browser you use. We use Chrome and you should be using Chrome too.
The ones with the blue frame are ready, use the CTRL key to select more than one photo.
3. As the photos are uploading, look down to the bottom of the page, just to the left of ‘Post photos’. There will be a gear icon there. This is where you change the privacy settings for you new album.
We had our settings to Custom but we will change them to Friends.
4. Click on the word that is there. If you haven’t changed this setting in the past, it should read Public. That’s not what we want.
Here are your selections for privacy for this album. We suggest Friends but it’s up to you.
5. The setting that you choose here will be your current default setting. From now on, whatever you post, even if you just update your status, this setting will control who can see that post or update.
TIP: You can only control the privacy for things that you post. If you comment, like,or share on anything that you didn’t put up on Facebook, everything will be controlled by the privacy settings of the original poster. Please remember that. If you like a friend’s photo, you can only unlike it, you can’t hide the fact that you liked it.
OK, so this is about posting an album. Next time we’ll describe how to change the privacy settings for your old photo albums. That will be Part 2.
Here’s a short post on getting your Facebook Likes back. We’ll show you how to sort out the different sections that appear when someone checks out your profile.
1. Head to your own Timeline and look for the words ‘Update Info’.
Click on Update Info.
2. Once you click Update Info, look over on the right for the icon of a pencil.
The word Edit appears when you hover over the icon. Click it.
3. Even if you don’t want to edit anything, click the icon and you’ll get this menu. Click ‘Edit Sections’ when you see it:
Click Edit Sections.
4. Up pops a list of all of the sections that you can choose to show or hide. Notice that three sections can’t be hidden: About, Photos and Friends are all permanent. You can, however, hide parts of these sections as we’ve told you before. You can hide your full Friend list, for instance, but you cannot hide any mutual friends that you might have with someone who sees your profile.
Pick the ones you want to show or hide.
5. Finally, don’t forget to click Save to make your changes take effect.
Click Save and you’re done.
That’s it. Your list will vary from ours, of course. The main sections will be the same but you won’t have Spotify, probably, but you might have ones that are not on our list.
We’ve had many comments about a glitch in the iOS Facebook app. Seems like the problem lies when you like a stranger’s comment or photo. There’s no problem with the actual liking, that works fine. The glitch reveals itself when someone tries to unlike the like or the comment. Have you had this problem? Let us know and, please, let us know if you’ve solved it. Thanks!
There are problems with the iOS app, that’s for sure. Here’s a link that describes some of them : iPhone App Problems
Looks good, doesn’t work quite so well.
Here’s what we suggest:
1. Make sure you have the latest update. That’s fairly obvious but you might be using a version of the app that is outdated. Head back to the App Store and see if there are any red numbers sitting there. Check that at least once a week, more if you have a great many apps on your device.
2. If the problem is indeed in the app, why not access Facebook from Safari? We’ve tried both and each seems to work well. There doesn’t seem to be any speed issues at all. Actually, we can’t see the point of using the app, except for the fact that it can access much more of your private information, such as your contact list, that Safari can’t. Is that a plus? We don’t think it its.
3. We’ve been unable to duplicate the problem but we have noticed that when we like a stranger’s comment, that activity does not show up on our activity log. Then again, when we like a stranger’s comment when we’re on a normal computer, that doesn’t show up on our Activity Log either.
Our final advice would be to take your time and avoid liking or commenting until you can access Facebook on a computer. Update your status, upload a pic, sure, but stay away from commenting and liking anything that isn’t posted by a friend. If you are using Safari to access Facebook, we’d say you’re safe but take care anyway.
We’re quite sure that everyone knows how to send and receive messages on Facebook. Did you know that your Facebook account has two inboxes? We didn’t until yesterday. Here’s the scoop on Facebook’s hidden message box.
When you receive a message from a Facebook friend, you get a notification and you can click the message icon on the top row of any Facebook page to read it. When you reply or comment on something on a stranger’s page, sometimes you get messages from complete strangers. Where do those messages go? It turns out that Facebook, just like any other email service, plunks those messages into your Facebook junk mail folder. Say what? A Facebook junk mail folder? You read that right. Here’s how to find it.
1. Start by checking your regular inbox, the one that’s actually called Inbox:
Click on the message icon at the top of any Facebook Page.
2. Move your mouse just a bit to the right of the word Inbox and click on Other. Yes, it looks like it’s hidden but it’s not:
Click Other to access your hidden inbox.
3. If you haven’t accessed this area of Facebook before, here is the warning message that you will see:
This explains everything!
Now, you may have some messages here or you might not. It depends on how active you are on Facebook. One of our accounts had over 30 messages, another account had only 6. The interesting this is that some messages are complete spam but some were from real Facebook users who had either replied to a comment we made and wanted more info or who were offering us more information on something we had asked in a comment.
WARNING! Please remember this: Once you send a message to a stranger or respond to a message that a stranger sent to you, your whole profile opens up to them, just as if they aren’t a stranger anymore. Read that again. When you get a message in this ‘junk’ box, sometimes that message is a phishing expedition, an attempt to see more of your profile than you would normally allow a stranger to see. Who would do this? Spammers for sure but stalkers send messages on Facebook, too. Don’t let your guard down. Be careful when you send a message or reply to a message from someone you don’t know, someone who is not a Facebook friend.
We were adjusting a few things on one of our accounts last week using the ‘View As’ feature. It must have been the first time we had used this tool because this message popped up:
Seems like nothing is really private, right?
Read that carefully folks. We’ve said it before but it’s worth repeating here: Don’t put anything on Facebook that you’ll regret later on, even if you hide it. Someone will almost certainly find it.
At about the same time, we discovered that your group affiliation is very visible, even if you hide everything about your groups from your profile. We checked one of our profiles from a different browser and there they were, all of our groups at the bottom of our profile. We’re pretty sure we weren’t signed into Facebook on that browser and had clicked on one of the facepiles on a site that we use. If we ever duplicate that glitch, we’ll be sure to save some screen captures.
Although we have written many posts about how to hide this and how to control access to that, there is one main point to keep in mind. A simple glitch on Facebook’s site has the potential to reveal anything or everything about you. That’s something to remember every time you use the site. You must also remember that Facebook itself has access to your material. Any employee with the right type of credentials could sift through your private photos, notes and messages. You may not know this but Facebook uses offshore workers to control its censorship policies. Offshore here means ‘not in North America’. Think about that the next time you post something that you think is shared only with a few friends.
We’re convinced that Facebook’s privacy controls are weak and, in many cases, ineffective. Facebook wants you to feel warm and cozy when you are on their site, using their seemingly effective privacy controls but, as we have discovered in the photo above, the controls are meaningless.
Here some safety tips that we’ve come up with. From time to time, we may add more to this list.
1. If you access the Internet on a shared computer, which is a bad idea at the best of times, make sure you remember to sign out from Facebook and, of course, don’t allow any browser to remember your password.
2. Don’t join any groups that may cause problems for you or your family. The group privacy controls are independent of your own settings and are needlessly confusing. If you feel the need to join a sketchy group, read number 3.
3. Create a second profile using a nickname or fake name and, above all, don’t use your real photo. Tell Facebook that you’re in Zimbabwe or Timbuktu, lie about your age and/or gender and access whatever scandalous groups, pages, people that you want, all in complete privacy. Use a new email address from Outlook or Gmail, not your ISP’s email setup, and only use that for the fake Facebook account. Don’t use your real name for the email account, either. Just remember that the authorities can always trace your IP address so keep all of your activities aboveboard, right?
4. Only add people that you know or have been recommended by friends. You don’t have to accept invitations from strangers. If you don’t know someone, don’t confirm the friendship. If they really persist, just block them.
5. Keep track of how your cell phone or tablet interacts with Facebook. Are you sharing your location every time you post something? Is Facebook accessing your contact list? Are you sharing more than you think you are? You have to ask yourself if Facebook is so important in your life that you might risk your own personal safety to use it. What about your children? Do they access Facebook through their cell phones? How much are they sharing? Start a dialogue with them and get some answers.
6. Create a Facebook account just for your family. If you’re going to share family pics, complete with details of your home, cars and location, make sure they are only seen by trusted family members. Once you get family mixed up with friends, you lose control of your privacy. Your family already knows where you live so you don’t have to draw a map to your house, right? Don’t share that information on Facebook . Share the cute, cuddly dog/cat/kid pics but don’t share everything!
7. Weed out your friend list, keeping in mind number 4. If there is someone you don’t know or don’t remember how you added them, get rid of them. Keep your friend list to just that, friends. If you take our advice in number 3, you can add whoever the heck you want, they won’t any danger to you.
8. This is important so read it carefully. If you are sending a message to someone that includes any personal information or is on a topic that could potentially cause problems for you, don’t send it. Use a proper and secure email system for those messages. Facebook messages may seem like email but they really aren’t. Think of them more like an interoffice memo. Facebook itself is not secure, right? How could its email system be any different?
9. If you are a teacher, don’t even think about using your real name or photo for your Facebook profile. Use a nickname, one your students don’t know, and restrict your profile photo and cover photos to ones that reveal nothing about you. You can’t hide your profile photo or any of your cover photos. Remember that.
10. If you are not a teacher, read number 9. Profile and cover photos cannot be hidden.
11. We’ve left the best till last. Here’s what a facepile looks like:
Is your face here? Is your child’s?
These are real and clickable Facebook profile photos. Anyone, anywhere in the world can click on those photos and be taken directly to a Facebook profile. Depending on how much information that person shares, in the blink of an eye a stranger could find out a city, a street and, sometimes, an address. Go back and read number 3 again. Can you see how this facepile relates to that suggestion? If you’re going to like a page, in this case Songza, why use your real profile photo? Use your fake account and go crazy liking this and that, knowing that no one can ever connect you to anything you do on Facebook. Think about it, OK?
Those are eleven suggestions to keep safe on Facebook. There are probably at least as many more but we’ll leave those for another post. Facebook is fun, addicting but, unfortunately, very deceptive in its practices. The nice folks there want you to share everything, like everything and toss your privacy to the wind, just so they can make money selling your profile to advertisers. Don’t let them sell you out.
Thanks for reading! Comments and suggestions are welcome, as always.
a little bit of hi-tech, a little bit of common sense and a lot of fun
