There seems to be another chain post on Facebook that is misleading people about how Facebook security settings work. Here’s the post:
“Hello to all of you who are on my list of contacts of Facebook. I would like to ask a favor of you…. You may not know that Facebook has changed its privacy configuration once again. Thanks to the new “Graphic app”, any person in Facebook anywhere in the world can see our photos, our “likes” and our “comments”. During the next two weeks, I am going to keep this message posted and I ask you to do the following and comment “DONE”. Those of my friends who do not maintain my information in private will be eliminated from my list of friends, because I want the information I share with you, my friends, to remain among my friends and not be available to the whole world. I want to be able to publish photos of my friends and family without strangers being able to see them which is what happens now when you choose “like” or “comment”.
Unfortunately we cannot change this configuration because Facebook has made it like this. So, please, place your cursor over my photo that appears in this box (without clicking) and a window will open. Now move the cursor to the word “Friends”, again without clicking and then on “Settings”. Uncheck “Photos”, “Life Events” and “Comments and Like”. This way my activity with my family and friends will no longer be made public. Now, copy and paste this text on your own wall (do not “share” it!). Once I see it published on your page, I will un-check the same for you. Thanks so much!”
This does not accomplish what it is saying it will. If someone takes these steps they will only stop your “Photos, Life Events, Comments and Likes” from showing in their feed. If you want to share things with your friends and family this will stop them from seeing them, not protect your content from being seen by the public. Those settings are under your privacy settings and you control that!
In the upper right corner is an image of a lock. Click on that to get the dropdown shown below. Then click on the “See More Settings”
Now you’ll see “Privacy Settings and Tools.”
The first choice “Who can see your future posts?” This is important for how things show up in the future. You have several choices.
- Public
- Friends
- Friends except Acquaintances
- Only me
- Custom
- Close Friends
- Limited Profile
These are pretty straight forward. If you only want your friends to see your posts choose “Close Friends.” You can also create a custom setting to include only specific people. Or exclude certain people. Also remember you can do this for every post.
There two other choices in this section. “Review all your posts and things you’re tagged in.” – This is a manual way to go through everything your are connected to to make sure someone hasn’t posted something they shouldn’t have. The second is “Limit the audience for posts you’ve shared with friends of friends or Public? This will change all your old posts that you may have shared with Public and friends of friends to just friends.
The last option that is import for controlling who sees your content is “Who can look me up?” – “Do you want other search engines to link to your timeline?” If you turn this off then other search engines like Google will not show your timeline in their search results.
So, please don’t re-post the instructions above because the result will be that the people that follow your instructions can’t see your posts. And always remember, nothing you post online is 100% private.
The bottom line is: If you’re worried about some one or the public seeing what you post… Don’t post it to Facebook!
