Wednesday, October 31, 2012

4 Privacy Tips for Facebook





Computer users have long had a love hate relationship with the internet’s most popular social networking site. There’s nothing like Facebook for staying in touch with friends and family. And yet, many people also struggle with the idea of maintaining their privacy while posting pictures, status updates and other personal information.


Luckily, there are ways you can exercise a degree of control over what people can and can’t access from your Facebook page. Here’s a look at 4 easy tips and tricks for keeping on top of the ever-changing privacy rules of Facebook while still staying social:


1. Determine what your current privacy settings are

To access your Facebook page’s privacy settings, log in to your account. In the top right corner of your home page (or time line) you’ll notice a pull-down menu next to the Home button. Clicking on the Account Settings and Privacy tabs from this menu will give you an overview of your current privacy landscape, and allow you to modify your settings.


2. Control your default privacy settings

Within the Privacy tab, you’ll notice a setting for your default privacy. This is the deciding factor in who is allowed to post to your timeline and who is and isn’t allowed to see your photos and status updates. The Public setting should generally be avoided, as it’s the equivalent of broadcasting your personal information across the web. The Friends setting is usually a much better option, since you have control over who you add to your friends list.


On the Custom setting, you can exclude certain people from being able to comment, or you can create a specified list of people who can access your information.


3. Decide how people can find and contact you

The next section on the Privacy page allows you to control how people connect with you on Facebook. Under the heading How You Connect, you can decide who can look you up by email, who can send you a message, and who is allowed to send you a friend request. You can select from anyone, just those on your friends list, or friends of your friends.


4. Adjust your tagging settings

An often overlooked area of privacy on Facebook falls under the heading of Timeline and Tagging. This is where you can control what happens when your friends tag you or your content, as well as when someone posts on your timeline.


First, you need to decide, from the pull down menu, who is allowed to post on your timeline. (This is also where you can choose to not have anyone post on your timeline at all.) Next, select who can see what others post on your timeline. If you want to be able to review posts that friends tag you in or tags that friends add to your own posts, simply switch the controls for these things from Off to On.

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