Category Archives: Hide Likes from Timeline

Facebook, Facebook 101, Facebook Secrets, Facebook Tricks, Hide Likes from Timeline, Timeline

Facebook Privacy Check

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We’ve been writing about Facebook privacy for quite a while now. There seem to be an incredible array of privacy settings, right? If you’d like to do your own experiments, and we suggest that you should, here’s what to do: Set up a second Facebook profile.

1. Instead of logging into Facebook, apply for a new account. Fill in your details on the page that comes up when you log out of your current account or simply go to Facebook.com in another browser. You could use your real identity, such as your second name and the same last name, or a fake one, it won’t matter to Facebook, even though their terms say you have to be a ‘real person’. You must use a real email address but that’s easy, sign up for a new hotmail or gmail account and you’re off.

2. Add yourself as a friend. That’s your first step. Forget about photos or personal details for now. Add your other account as a friend (in a separate browser), and get to work. Keeping both profiles open in separate browsers will show you instantly how changing the settings on your new profile affects what updates you send out to your other, original profile.

3. On the new account, go around liking things, posting crazy pics with different privacy settings and so on. On your normal account, check to see what is shown from your alter ego’s activities. What you’re looking for, obviously, is how you can hide what your fake account does from your real account. If your fake account can hide things, then your real account can hide things as well.

4. Make a note of anything you do. We find ourselves lost in the thick of Facebook privacy pages sometimes and, quite frankly, we forget how we got there. Part of this is deliberate. We have to describe how to get to a certain page to our readers so it has to be kind of second nature to us. Getting lost lets us experiment with our reader’s experience. If we explain something and we get lost, then sure as shootin’ our readers will too.

5. You can use the second account to subscribe to pages and websites that you wouldn’t normally subscribe to, knowing that your privacy is guaranteed. For some of you who have very eclectic tastes, this might be the answer to the whole Facebook privacy problem. Instead of trying to decipher Facebook’s arcane privacy settings, simply start a new account and get on with exploring the alternate lifestyle you want to hide from your family and/or your friends.

6. Another benefit of a new account comes with the different Facebook games you play. If you need shots of energy in Mafia Wars, send them from your new account. There are quite a few games that require neighbors in order to advance. Adding yourself as a neighbor opens up more doors in games such as Farmville or Hidden Chronicles.

Adding a new Facebook account and experimenting with it is simple, free and probably takes a lot less time than trying to remember which setting is which, at least as far as privacy is concerned. It also takes less time than reading posts such as we have here on Computers Made Simple but we hope you still come back to visit us now and then.

Thanks for reading!

Facebook, Facebook 101, Facebook Tricks, Hide Likes from Timeline, Privacy, Timeline

Hiding Things on Facebook

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There are things you can hide on Facebook and things you can’t. Let’s start with the short list.

Things you can’t hide on Facebook

Comments and likes on anything that you haven’t posted. If you comment or like someone’s photo, you can’t hide it, you can only delete the comment or ‘unlike’ the photo. Same thing for a status update, a note or a page that you’ve liked. You can hide the fact that you like the page but you can’t hide your comments. Therefore:

Facebook Rule Number One: If you don’t want someone to see a like or a comment, don’t comment on or like a photo, status or comment that wasn’t posted by you.

 

Things you can hide on Facebook

You can hide virtually everything else, except what you see above. Feel free to subscribe, click like on fan pages, post photos and notes (making sure you set your privacy rules accordingly). If there are some subscriptions or fan pages that you want to hide, you can do that. We’ll show you how.

For everything you post on Facebook, there is an icon just to the right which allows you to set the rules for who can see the post. The only one that needs explanation is the Custom choice. If you click that, you can hide the post from some of your friends. Just start typing their name in the slot and select them one by one.

Here are some tips on how to hide your page likes and subscriptions:

1. Click on your profile photo on the top right to get to your timeline,

2. Click on the words Update Info.

3. Here’s what you’ll see:

The first page for updating your information.
Select the things you want to update using the drop down menu on the upper left.

4. The items in the drop down menu might be different than the ones you see here. On one of our accounts, we’ve lost the ‘likes’ completely. The one you are looking for here is probably ‘subscriptions’ or ‘likes’. Clicking on Likes brings up a page which lists all of your likes. Move your mouse over to the top right until the word Edit appears, like this:

Mouseover shown to edit "likes"
The edit button is a mouseover, it only appears when the mouse hovers over the spot where it is.

5. Click on the word Edit when it appears and this page will show up next:

List of Editable Likes
Use the icons on the right to hide your different likes.

6.  As you can see, the top list of Favorites are locked, only available to the owner of the profile. The rest are open to friends only. The current page is for your ‘favorites’, the general interest things such as movies and TV and so on. Scroll down this page to get to your actual Facebook page likes and your website/web page likes to see this:

Lower half of Facebook Likes page.
Scroll down the page to see this selection, subs will vary, of course.

7. This is where your selection of page likes will show up. Here you will see the Facebook pages you have clicked like on plus all of the websites or web pages that you’ve also liked. As you can see in the example above, all of this person’s like are locked, only the owner can see them. Any page this person clicks like on will be hidden from everyone. Remember that.

Tip: Before you go around clicking like on questionable pages, click like on a generic page. Once you’ve done that, head over to the page above and hide that like from everyone, or just from some/one of your friends. Anything you like after that will be hidden, according to your current settings.

Finally, here is the key to hiding what pages you like, whether they be Facebook pages or web sites or pages beyond Facebook:

Use this menu to select who can see your likes on Facebook.
Use this menu to select who can see your likes on Facebook.

It is that little menu at the top. Use it wisely and you’ll be able to safely click like on anything BUT posts or shares by other people.
Facebook is fun but sometimes you like to keep some of your activities hidden from your friends. We hope this little guide helps you out.

Thanks for reading!

 

 

Facebook, Facebook 101, Facebook Secrets, Facebook Tricks, Hide Likes from Timeline, Timeline

Facebook 101 – Part 7 – Hiding most of your likes from your Facebook timeline

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It’s fun to share things on Facebook but it’s also prudent sometimes to hide things from your friends and family. If you absolutely love Justin Bieber, Rihanna or even Snoop Dog, maybe you don’t want to share these things with co-workers, friends or family. But you still want to keep up on what these singers are up to, just as you want to get updates on TV shows, movies, etc. We’re sure you can see why you might want to hide your entertainment likes from your Facebook timeline.

TIP: Your entertainment likes and interests are all open by default. The fact that you liked a TV show or a movie, for example, may be past history or you might add a singer to your like list. As soon as you do that, your action will show up on your timeline as well as the newsfeed and the ticker. The time to hide anything like that is before you signify that you like it. Got it?

Here’s how to get to the area you want:

Click the arrow to the right of the word Home on the top right. Choose Account Settings. On the left, look for the words: “You can also visit your privacy settings or edit your timeline to control who sees the info there”. Click ‘your timeline’ to bring up the next page. Close the Basic Info box that is open by default, then look up by your name for the word ‘About’ and the little arrow to the right of it. Click the arrow and choose ‘Likes’.

All of your default Facebook likes, such as Books, Movies, TV shows, Etc. are there. Now, some of these might be OK to have on your timeline/profile. Here is where you get to choose who sees what.

Click the word ‘Edit’ up on the top right. A list of topics follows and beside each topic is a share icon. Here you can choose what to hide from whom or what to hide from everyone. Settings are: Public, Friends, Only me (you), Custom and so on. Custom is the one you would choose if you want to hide the fact that you like Justin Beiber from your daughter, for example, but not all of your other friends. Make sure you click ‘Done Editing’ when you are finished.

These like lists were part of the original Facebook, long before you could simply like a page. They describe you to other people, sure, but maybe you don’t want everyone to know you like the Yankees if you live in Boston.

In our last post we described how to hide page likes from your timeline and you might want to go back to that article here: Hide Page Likes from your Timeline. 

Thanks for reading!

Tip: You cannot hide photo likes or comments or the fact that you liked a comment or note or album on Facebook. Your only choice is to ‘unlike’ or delete your comment. Pretty much everything else is able to be hidden. Read our past posts to find out how.

 

Facebook, Facebook 101, Facebook Secrets, Facebook Tricks, Hide Likes from Timeline

Facebook 101 – Part 6 – How to hide page likes on Facebook

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Here’s now to hide page likes from your Facebook timeline. Page likes don’t show up on the newsfeed or side ticker, only on your timeline. There is no reason why anyone needs to know that you like a certain company’s page or some megastar’s page either. That’s your business, isn’t it? Here’s how to keep that information off of your timeline.

1. Log-in to Facebook and head over to your Profile page. Basically, click on your name, just the right of center. That will bring up your timeline.

2. Click on the Activity Log box just to the right of your name.

3. Anything you have done in the last little while is at the top. To the right of each entry is an icon. If you have liked a Facebook page, it will show up there.

4. Click the icon on the far right and choose ‘Hide from timeline’. You’re done.

You have to be quick about this. Make sure you have Facebook open and are logged in before you like a page that you want to hide from your timeline. Go the page and like it, then head back to your profile and follow the steps we’ve described above. No one but you will know what pages you like.

Thanks for reading! Next up is hiding your other likes on your timeline and from the newsfeed or ticker.

TIP: Remember that you cannot hide the fact that you liked a photo or a comment or that you made a comment on a photo. All of those things are wide open and show up on both your timeline and your friend’s newsfeeds and tickers. There’s nothing you can do about any of that except unlike the photo or delete the comment. Watch out for that, OK?

Computers, Facebook, Facebook Secrets, Facebook Tricks, Hide Likes from Timeline, Timeline

Why is Facebook hiding its Timeline Help Page?

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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:

Click on 'your Timeline' to edit your preferences.
Click on 'your Timeline' to edit your preferences.

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:

Click the Timeline to edit it
Click the word Timeline to edit your preferences.

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: 

Watch for this hidden link as the page loads.
This line appears only for a fraction of a second before it disappears.

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:

Edit your timeline choices on this menu.
Here is everything you can share on Facebook. Edit each one to your preferences.

 

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!