How private is your Facebook account?
While we might think our Facebook is perfectly safe and private, Facebook has a tendency to update their privacy settings every few months so it is always a good idea to check that you are not unwittingly sharing things online with a wider audience than your friends and family. Here’s a refresher course in making sure your Facebook is on the privacy setting you want.
Who can see your Facebook posts and updates?
- After you have logged in to Facebook, click the padlocked icon on the upper-right corner of your page. A drop down menu will appear.
- Click on “Who can see my stuff?”
- There will be an option for “Who can see my future posts?”
- There will be two main options – Public (a world symbol) which means all your posts will be seen by anyone on or off Facebook and Friends (two person silhouette) which means only your friends on Facebook can see your post.
- Click on Friends so all your posts and update will only be seen by your Facebook friends.
To double-check this on your home Facebook page click to update your status. On the bottom right-hand side (next to the post button) you should see “Friends”. This means your status update will only be going out to your Facebook friends.
Who can contact you?
- After you have logged in to Facebook, click the padlocked icon on the upper-right corner of your page. A drop down menu will appear.
- Click on “Who can contact me?”
- There is an option to change what messages appear in your private inbox on Facebook and “Who can send me friend request?”
- You can choose strict filtering system so only Facebook friends can send you private messages.
- You can also change your friend request setting from the default “Everyone” (world symbol) to only “Friends of Friends” can send you friend request on Facebook. This will prevent strangers on internet from befriending you.
However, just remember Facebook is a social networking site and there may be people from your past (for example, old school friends) who are trying to look you up and get in touch. That is one of the wonderful benefits of social media so it is something to consider when changing your options to very private. You could miss out on reconnecting with your best friend from primary school!
Updating your status on your smartphone and tablet
When posting on your Facebook on a device it is now easy to double-check if you are posting to only your Facebook friends.
- Click on “Status” or “Photo” and at the top you will see box with “To:” (similar to what you will see in an email”).
- You should see “Friends” with the two person silhouette symbol. If you do not simply click on the arrow on the right-hand side and the option will come up to post to Friends (or the Public if you are so inclined).