Much has been said lately about Facebook and their cavalier approach to privacy that clearly appears to be profit-, rather than community-oriented. Other than saying that they may want to try drinking their own kool-aid and conversing rather than forcing, I’m not going to deal with that here.

What we should focus on is the outrage people feel when they realize that their online photos of last week’s keg party might be – oh I don’t know – visible to their boss? Why are folks surprised??

There’s no way to 100% safeguard your Facebook information and photos!

The only way to completely ensure that unwanted viewers can’t see your info/photos is not post them in the first place. But there are settings you can play with that make your Facebook presence more controlled and reduce the ways people can see your stuff.

Here are a few basic tips:

1. If you don’t want your FaceBook profile visible to the public: Go to your search privacy settings page. Find the area that talks about “Search Visibility” and click on “Only friends”. Keep in mind that doing so will prevent people who might be searching for you on Facebook from finding you. But that’s a price most folks are willing to pay.
2. If you want some friends to see your stuff…and others not to: Work those friend lists! What are friend lists? They are categories in your friend area that you can group your friends into. That way when you post your ‘nerdy’ work stuff, you can keep your bowling team from teasing you next time they see you. And more importantly, you can keep your wild n’ crazy photos from showing up on your work colleagues news feeds.
3. If you don’t want everyone to tag you in photos they choose to post: Speaking of wild and crazy photos! Most people learn this next lesson the hard way. They log onto Facebook and get a notification that “you have been tagged in a photo!” And sometimes…. it’s not really a photo you are thrilled about. Maybe it’s unflattering or maybe it shows you in an uncompromising position, but either way – you don’t want it attached to your profile. So what to do? Easy. Go to your profile privacy page and find the setting about “Photos Tagged of You”. Now “Customize” it to show tagged photos to “only Me” or “none of my networks.” That will prevent all tagged photos from showing up to anyone but you.

There is much more you can do to your settings to ensure that your privacy is at least partially protected, but these three settings will help you gain control in a big way.

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