Keeping your privacy on Facebook
I’m glad to see that Facebook has added a privacy page where a lot of settings can be altered to make your information more private.
It’s important on any social network that you’re a member of to make sure that you are aware of the information that friends, members and general browsers can see.
Some of the settings to be aware of on Facebook:
privacy (top right) > Profile > Basic
Control who can see your profile, basic info, personal info, status updates, education info and more. The default is All Friends and everyone in any of your networks. Better to keep it to friends only, and if you’re fairly elastic about accepting friend requests, then you can click Customize and choose Only Me or any combination of networks and friends for each item of information.
You don’t have to fill in any contact details other than an email address, but if you do
privacy (top right) > Profile > Contact information
enables you to keep your information more private (set to No One) – real friends will have your contact info anyway.
I always object to giving out my date of birth, so I often use a false date. This is one option on Facebook, and/or you can choose
Profile > edit > Basic
to set your profile to show only month and day of your birthday or not to show at all.
privacy > Search
enables you to allow who can do a search and find you. You can set it to Everyone, or a variety of options: but friends will always be able to find you.
I am a member of Facebook in order that people can find me and I can keep in touch with colleagues, ex-colleagues and old friends so I’m going to allow anyone to search for me and to send me a message to check I’m the right person. You may want to keep your details utterly secret.
Whatever, give as little away as you need to and remember that even in a social space potential employers and clients will be able to find you so be careful what impression you give of yourself, e.g., in your status message, and keep an eye out for whether people are tagging you in unsuitable photographs.