Privacy and permission: How to avoid embarassment on Facebook
Facebook users who don’t manage their privacy and permission settings leave themselves vulnerable to cybercriminals and embarassment. Both can be found among Facebook’s 175+ million users.
Cybercriminals are rare. Embarassment is commonplace. Both can be avoided. That’s why I cringe when I witness friends and coworkers overlooking Facebook’s robust privacy and permission settings.
Aside from some of the obvious Facebook disasters – ones that cost people jobs and relationships – there are some basic settings to consider before turning your profile loose to friends and business colleagues.
Keep in mind, Facebook frowns on using your Profile for “professional promotion”. Those are reserved for Pages and Groups, which have different purposes – and settings – not covered in this article. For this exercise, let’s focus on your Profile.
Determine who sees what
I think of Facebook as a bunch of never-ending cocktail parties you can leave or return to at any time. Some of the conversation is exciting and worth your participation. Some of it is a cue to head home and disengage from the party.
With that in mind, what we share on Facebook can work well for networking with business colleagues – kind of like that after-work gathering at the local pub.
But, do you want your frat buddies showing up, making comments about the people or conversations there? Maybe not. The same could be said for what you’re comfortable sharing with those same frat buddies: Would you want coworkers or potential clients to see that stuff? No way.
“Privacy settings are important for business professionals interested in social networking,” writes Clara Shih, creator of Faceconnector, in her book, The Facebook Era. “By strategically sharing some personal information, such as a photo of their newborn, while hiding other information, people can show a softer side and build emotional rapport with colleagues while protecting their corporate image and reputation.”
Make at least two Friend Lists
The #1 thing you can do to protect your image on Facebook is to create separate Friend Lists. For this exercise, we’ll split your list between work Friends and non-work Friends. Get started by going under News Feed and selecting + Create. Here’s where you Enter a Name for your Friend List and then populate it with those from your full list of Friends. For example, to keep it simple, create Work and Friends lists.
Next, visit the Settings tab. Choose Privacy Settings then Profile. Facebook allows you to pick who sees what from 10 different parts of your Profile (for example, your education or work info). From the drop-down menu, customize these items by picking either Everyone, Friends of Friends, Only Friends or Customize (which allows you to choose from those newly created Friends Lists).
The Customize feature even allows you to prevent individual friends from viewing parts of your Profile. You can also use the Some Friends feature to include only a handful of friends – like if you only want two or three friends to see videos tagged of you. There’s an Only Me button that’s pretty self-explanatory. Also, the Contact Information tab on your profile can also be customized. For example, I choose not to share my mobile phone number with all my Friends and can do so using the Customize feature.
You can also hide certain Facebook content without deleting it or the Friend who posted it. On your Wall, mouse over the right side of any post for the Hide option. You can either hide posts from the person entirely, or just from the application that generated the post. This is especially helpful if you want to just concentrate on status updates and other posts unrelated to apps. Use the Edit Options link at the bottom of the main page to further manage this option.
On the photo/video side of things, you ultimately control the tagging option. For example, a tagged photo of you pops up on your Wall from a friend, but you don’t want to be tagged. Click on the photo and use the remove tag option. After you do this, no one can re-tag you in the photo.
Applications do not apply to all
I don’t want you to forget about Facebook apps because they can leave behind a trail of destruction on your Wall. I doubt you want business colleagues or customers to see you sent a drink to a college buddy or that you’re addicted to Mafia Wars.
Control the information these apps post on your Wall and your friends news feeds by visiting the Settings tab. Then select Application Settings to populate a list of apps you’ve accessed. Use the Edit Settings feature to customize privacy settings on each app. A pop-up window lets you to control what info the application shares – from every move you make to nothing (I prefer nothing). The Additional Permissions tab allows you to prevent Wall publishes on any activity. This helps you avoid those “just sent drinks to so-and-so” by halting that news stream between the app and your Wall.
Conclusion
So, you want Facebook to do more. It absolutely should. Get the conversations going with more than just friends and family. But be smart about it.
“Your photo and professional information will help people remember who you are and the context in which you met,” concludes Shih, in The Facebook Era. “Your other information that you decide to share, perhaps where you are from and photos of your children, will help people get to know you better is they so choose. Increasingly, business cards are becoming more of a formality – sometimes putting a face to the name makes all the difference.”
There’s the power of Facebook, but (in the words of Peter Parker, Spiderman’s mild-mannered daytime persona) “with great power comes great responsibility.”
Use your permissions and privacy settings on Facebook well.
Credits: Those unable to manage permission settings might want to consider purchasing the blackbar sunglasses pictured above. “Black Bars offer no promise of anonymity and may draw unwanted attention. It is possible this product will make you appear ridiculous. Do not operate heavy machinery while wearing Black Bars at night.”
Manners
Embarassment could also be avoided if everyone followed these simple manners. Watch the story of Timmy and Alice to learn some important Facebook dos and don’ts.
I’m using my electric friendship generator. Up until now I haven’t been overly concerned with privacy settings. Maybe I should be. One thing I would caution people to do is think hard about which FB feature they use. I’ve seen wall posts that look like they were intended for one person. Remember folks, everyone can see those. It’s like putting your personal email on a billboard.
Another thing to consider are your Networks. When you join a Network (which is usually a geographic location, school or work place), everyone in that Network can see pretty much everything… for some networks, that’s hundreds of thousands of users. Yikes! If you’re part of a network or have joined one, check it out.
Go to Settings>Privacy Settings>Profile to manage these permissions.
If you don’t want people in your Network, you have to choose so in the drop-down bar. For example, change it from My Networks and Friends to Only Friends.
Great information, Tom – I’m creating “friends” lists and modifying privacy settings right after I post this!
Tom, This is just the helpful info I was looking for as I am working on improving how I work with facebook. The different lists is a great idea and one I will implement right away. I also learned how to hide news feeds for a few people as well. Great tips and I will retweet this to my followers on Twitter too.
Great info! I wish everyone would read this – I see so many people making really bad facebook choices…