Facebook Privacy Settings & Photo Tag Opt-Out
Recent changes in late 2011 to Facebook can help you control who can view your photos, wall posts and photos your tagged in. Facebook users who are concerned about their privacy (and their children’s privacy) should make sure their settings are correct. I recently noticed the changes because suddenly I was seeing people’s photos who I’m not friends with show up in my ‘stream’ or News Feed as Facebook calls it. It happens because one of my friends will comment on one of their friends photos’ (but we’re not mutual friends) and the individual that posted the photo has their photo settings set to ‘Public’. Not only is the photo viewable to everyone who visits that persons profile it also ends up injected into people’s active news feeds for viewing along with
His settings are set to PUBLIC so this photo and comments showed up in my Facebook news feed even though we're not friends.
ALL OF THE COMMENTS. So for those of you that are like me and really don’t want every Tom, Dick and Harry knowing your business here’s the skinny on how to secure your facebook profile, photos, and wall posts. It’s important that users understand these settings need to be made to their Facebook account so they will carry over to their PDA or cell phones with Facebook apps that don’t offer privacy settings.
Finally, Facebook has offered the feature of approving or not approving photos that other people tag you in BEFORE they appear in people’s ‘stream’ or News Feed. Before photos you were tagged in would show up on your profile as soon as you were tagged. Now you can choose to approve or reject any photo or post you are tagged in before it’s visible to anyone else on your profile by turning on the setting. Here is some instruction on how to make your Facebook world more private!
How to select who can view your Facebook profile information
1. Click on your name in the far right upper right hand corner next to the Home link.
2. Click the ’Edit Profile’ button that now appears in the far upper right corner.
3. You will notice the world icon (indicates ‘public’) or people icon (indicates ‘friends only’) to the right of each of your profile fields, click on the down arrow on them. Select each of them to ‘Friends’ or if you want something to be seen by the ‘public’ or everyone in the Facebook universe then select the world icon ‘Public’. Click the SAVE CHANGES button at the bottom of the page. Do this for each of the categories to the left of this page (Basic information, Friends and Family, Education and Work, etc) and you MUST click on the SAVE CHANGES button on each page before you move to the next category or your changes will not be saved.
4. To see how a certain person, group or the ‘Public’ sees your profile click on the ‘VIEW AS’ button in the far right corner and select public to see how the public views it or type in a name of a ‘friend’ to see how they view it.
How to change your Facebook privacy settings
1. Click on the arrow by your name in the far right upper right hand corner. Select ‘Privacy Settings’.
2. Check the circle under the Friends icon. Then Click on the Edit Settings under each of the categories below, choose your desired settings and then DONE. Do this for each of the categories.
4. To turn the tool on that allows you to approve or not approve photos other people tag you in go under the section labeled ‘How Tags Work’ under ’Security Settings’ and choose the below settings. Hit the DONE button.
How to easily select who sees the information you post on Facebook
1. For each post, photo, or video you can select who sees it by using the ‘inline’ controls. Select ‘ Update Status’>click the icon with down arrow>select ‘Friends’ or a specific group you would like to allow to view this particular post, photo, link and/or video.
