Five Facebook Privacy Features

It’s happened to everyone, right? You’re relaxing with a glass of wine, it’s late, you’re checking your Facebook and you post something funny, but slightly naughty or maybe you just embark on a tirade about your jerk of a boss. You log off and go to bed and then at 2 a.m. you spring up from sleep remembering that OMG last week I friended my (mom, boss, insert fear-inducing person here).

Now whether or not to friend these people in the first place is a moot point since it’s done. But you wonder what are they going to think of your post.

Before this happens to you you might want to get acquainted with the privacy setting on Facebook.

1. Use Friend Lists
Create private groupings of friends based on your personal preferences so you can have a list for family, co-workers, good friends, professional, you get the idea. You can configure these lists by visiting the Friends area of Facebook.

2. Remove yourself from Facebook search results
First visit the Search Privacy Settings page. Then under Search Visibility select “only friends” and click save. Here you can also remove yourself from Google by unchecking the box next to the phrase “Create a public search listing for me and submit it for search engine indexing.”

3. Control tagged photos of yourself
Visit your profile privacy page and modify the setting next to “Photos Tagged of You” Select customize. Here you will be able to choose who can see your tagged photos and whether you want them kept private.

As for your albums go to the Photos Privacy Page and manually configure the visibility of each of your photo albums.

4. Make your personal contact info private
In your profile go to info and contact information and edit. This is where your Friends List will come in handy because you can modify it so that only those close to you can see your contact information.

5. Adjust wall posting visibility
Within your profile page click on Settings. Then you should see a box that addresses posting ability. Adjust the setting that says “Who Can See Posts Made by Friends?”

You can also control who can post to your wall under the Profile Privacy setting page section labeled Wall Posts.