Tag Archives: adjust Facebook privacy settings

Adjust Default Privacy Settings, Facebook

Facebook – Change privacy settings for ads

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Trying to maneuver your way around Facebook’s privacy settings has always been a problem. Now, with Facebook shooting out more and more ads, it’s time to adjust your privacy settings. Here we go:

1. On any Facebook page, click the down arrow icon up on the top right and choose Settings on the drop-down menu:

photo of menu 1
Settings from the drop-down menu under the arrow icon.

2. The first thing you see if your General settings but we’re after Privacy settings. For now,  just review them, then we’ll move on to Adverts.

Photo of Facebook general settings
Take a quick look here to make sure your info is as you want it.

3. While you’re here, take a look at your basic privacy settings. Our photo shows our settings. We like to keep things set to ‘Friends Only’ and suggest that you do the same.

Photo of Facebook Basic Privacy
We have everything set to Friends Only.

4. Move on to Adverts. Your wording may vary, of course. Adverts is a British term, certainly not one you’d hear in Canada or the U.S.

Photo of Road to Advert Settings
Adverts? Really? Seems so.

5. The page is divided into three sections. You can edit your preferences in the first two but the last is only for your own education. Read the third one carefully after you’ve edited the first two sections.

Photo of Facebook Advert Adjustments
Two of the sections have an Edit button. Read the preamble then click Edit to set your own parameters.

6. The first section describes something that isn’t available yet in Canada. The wording for you may be different. Regardless, we’ve set this up so ‘No one’ will be able to see our information, even if this feature is enabled at a later date. You should do the same.

Photo of 3rd party ad menu
Opt out, even if this feature isn’t available to you yet. (Feature? Not really.)

7. Facebook blithely tells you that “Everyone wants to know what their friends like”. Really? Read the rest of this section carefully. Again, we’ve got this set to ‘No one’. Is there any reason why you would allow Facebook to allow advertisers to use your profile photo? We can’t.

Photo of Adverts and Friends Menu
Do you want your social actions paired to ads? No? We didn’t either.

8. Read the last section very carefully. Facebook follows you while you are on their site but they also follow you when you are ‘off Facebook’. If you don’t agree with this, and we can’t see why you would agree to it, opt out through one of the links shown, depending on where you are in the world. There aren’t links to any Asian countries here so you might have a hard time opting out if you’re not in Canada, the U.S. or Europe. We can’t help with that, unfortunately.

Photo of Facebook Opt Out Form

All of this should be straightforward but if it isn’t, let us know. Comments and questions are welcome but  Likes on our Facebook page get immediate attention.  Here’s the link:

Computers Made Simple on Facebook 

Thanks for reading!

Adjust Default Privacy Settings, Facebook, Facebook Tricks

The Perfect Facebook Profile – How to hide everything from strangers

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What makes a perfect Facebook profile? One that reveals the absolute minimum about you. Why? Because Facebook is desperately trying to increase its hold on your life and will use parts of your profile in ways that you never imagined. Check out this ‘facepile’:

Photo of Facepile
Hover over the Facebook icon and this pops up.

This looks innocent enough, doesn’t it? Ten nameless faces. But wait! Hover your mouse over any of them:

Photo of Facepile from Seventeen Mag
What’s this? A name to go with the photo?

You might say, “So? What’s the big deal here?”  Well, so far we have a face and a name. Let’s see what else we can get from this Facebook facepile.

 

Photo of Facebook Profile
Everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask. Hell, you don’t even have to ask, do you?

 

What can we find out about this person simply by clicking on her profile? Nothing more than her city, her high school, her original home town, her age, if she’s in a relationship, who her friends are, all of her photo albums…well, you get the point.

This is why we are concerned about your privacy. If you’re not worried, move on to something else. If you are, stick around. By the end of this week you’ll know how to lock up your profile completely, showing the world the absolute minimum that Facebook will let you. Why can’t you hide everything? Simply because Facebook is a social medium, that’s the point of it. Once you agree to Facebook’s terms of use, there are some things you can’t hide. We’ll show you how to minimize the threat of overexposure, even hiding those things that Facebook says you can’t hide.

That’s enough for today but here’s a link to our post on how to hide your Facebook profile photo thumbnail: Facebook Profile Photo Trick. In future posts this week we’ll show you how to:

1. Hide your friend list, everyone except your mutual friends (can’t hide them).

2. Hide your personal information, the stuff you see under the About button on your Timeline.

3. Your activity, at least as much as Facebook allows you to hide.

and more! This site is a wealth of information about Facebook and many other topics. Stop by our Facebook page and click ‘Like’. That way, you’ll always be up to date on the how-tos and security updates that we post. Here’s the link: Computers Made Simple on Facebook. 

Thanks for reading! Questions and comments are always welcome, remember that.

 

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

Facebook Privacy Settings – Updated, Part 1

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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.

Photo of Add Photo Album to Facebook 1
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.

Photo of Add Photo Album to Facebook 2
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.

Photo of Add Photo Album to Facebook 3
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.

Photo of Add Photo Album to Facebook 4
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.

Thanks for reading!