Following requests from users and research that showed only 15-20% of users had adjusted their privacy settings from the defaults, Facebook has launched new privacy controls. The new controls are designed to give Facebook users more control over their privacy. You can now apply individual privacy settings to all posts, pictures and albums. Users beware though, some early adopters of these controls have inadvertently shared their wall with more that just their friends…

We may be wrong, but it appears to us that in fact Facebook have reduced the functionality…ho hum

When logging in to Facebook, you should now be prompted to use the privacy transition tool.

Facebook is one of the 21st century communication successes allowing us to keep up to date with our acquaintances in ways that fit with our hectic lifestyles. However, are you aware with what you are sharing with whom? Every Facebook user should be aware of these fundamental basics…

1. Remove yourself from Facebook search results.

For some people, careers come near the top of their priorities lists and understandably don’t want to cause any negative effects on their jobs. For example, GPs have been in the press recently due to patients inappropriately contacting them through Facebook. This also applies for teachers who want to be able to enjoy the connectivity that Facebook provides but prevents their pupils from seeing they are on the site.

How to remove yourself from Facebook search results

At any time, you can remove yourself from the Facebook search results without affecting the functions you enjoy or affecting your friends lists. It is very straight forward

• Go to your search privacy settings page
• Under “Search Visibility” select “Only Friends” 
• Click “Save Changes”

Most users aren’t aware of their visibility and this is key to maintaining your privacy, it is important to become aware of who can see what information about you. If you think it is something you wouldn’t normally share with anyone but your closest friends then you should address it. By default Facebook’s visibility profiles do not favour those wanting to maintain privacy and require actions to make content not visible.

2. Use Friends lists.

Most users are not aware of this key Facebook feature. Friends lists enable you to group friends and apply various levels of privacy to each group. A good example are class mates from back in your school days, you may want to reconnect with them, but not allow them to have your contact information or see what you are doing Friday night. You can also choose to not share tagged pictures, a very good tip for not sharing social content with work colleagues.

Some of the useful side benefits of friends lists are that you can send group messages to your lists as well as group status updates. A few typical friends lists would be “work”, “school mates”, and “family” although you could go further and actually group work friends by department or location.

You can create your friends lists here.

3. Remove your profile from Google.

A large amount of Facebook’s visitor referrals come through the Google search results. By default you will appear in the Google search results. Not all of your profile is displayed, a larger than usual profile image, name, list of your friends, a send you a message link and a list of groups you are associated with. Due to the size of the site, Facebook listings appear highly within the Google search results. For some people it may be very useful to appear highly within the search results, but many users don’t want their information so freely available.

This is an easy privacy option to alter, visit the search privacy tab and uncheck the box listed “Create a public search listing for me and submit it for search engine indexing”.

Facebook Google results

4. Prevent the “drunken mishap pictures” syndrome.

One of the most classic causes of Facebook problems. You have a drink or two that turns into a bit of a session. Everyone does it now and then, instead of just nursing a hangover the next day your dealing with the fact that a so called “friend” has posted a video of you trying to emulate Jenson Button in a Sainsbury’s trolley. Suddenly, your dreams of being a sambuca sponsored F1 champion have been scuppered by your boss receiving the whole incident in 12 megapixel glory. 

This can be just embarrassing, or worse, mean unemployment.
  

How do you prevent tagged photos from appearing in your friends news feeds? 

Go to your privacy page and modify the setting, “photos tagged of you”. Select the customize option and select the relevant option to you. By choosing only me and none of my networks you will ensure no one else will see the pictures. If you would like to, you can choose to apply privileges to individual friends or friends lists.

5. Be careful with application news feeds.

When you add a new application it can be easy to miss that it will frequently add items immediately to your profile. You may have added the application purely on recommendation or for a laugh. If you added an application on sex toys, do you necessarily want your family or work colleagues being fed an item called “Dave is playing with the new S&M bondage whip”

It is very important to monitor what happens as soon as an application is installed. The way to avoid this is to either stop viewing applications or to check your profile whenever you do. Applications you already use and trust shouldn’t cause you any problems, but be weary of new ones that could post potentially embarrassing updates to your profile.

6. When is a friend not a friend?

Remember that when you accept a friend, you will be sharing personal information and media with someone who you may not normally want to have access to. It may seem obvious, but have some basic criteria for identifying a friend. Do you recognise their profile picture?  Do you have any mutual friends? It is rare, but sometimes imposters pose as people in order to “cyber stalk” their victims – ask them a question they should know the answer to before accepting.

Do not accept a friend invite just because they seem to know you, you have no idea what their agenda might be. It is better to be safe than to have thousands of unknown facebook friends.

7. Protect your contact information.

You may think about making your contact information private to protect your mobile number, email address and home address. Our best advise is to only share your contact information with your closest contacts and not with friends you don’t share a strong relationship with.

It’s an easy thing to overlook, but is probably the most important feature to update from the defaults. Again this utilises the friends list feature heavily. Getting into a habit of grouping your friends will allow you to only share details like your mobile number with those that you would give it to in the real world.

You edit your contact information from right within your profile.

7. Protect your photo albums.

If you wish to keep your photos private from the rest of the world, you must do it on an album by album basis. There is a specific Photos Privacy page which enables you to control the visibility of each album individually. This is an important feature and its usage is recommended. This way you ensure that the only people that see all of the photos you upload are the ones you want to. It is also a further extension of the friends lists option and it usage keeps you familiar with the Facebook privacy options.