the smart employee's guide to facebook privacy settings excerpt

8/9/2019 The Smart Employee's Guide to Facebook PRIVACY SETTINGS excerpt

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Facebook® is a registered trademark of Facebook, Inc.

***Privacy Settings Excerpt***



2 | P a g e Excerpt by Diane K. Danielson

This eBook is excerpted from The Smart Employee’s Guide to Facebook ® and The Downtown

Women’s Club Guide to Facebook® (August 2010). The complete eBook is available FREE to

DWC+ members in the member center of www.DowntownWomensClub.com or can be

downloaded for $9.95 at http://scr.bi/smartfacebookguide.

Contents

Section VII - Privacy Matters .................................................................................................................... 3

Privacy> Basic Directory Information........................................................................................................ 3

Privacy> Sharing ........................................................................................................................................ 4

Privacy> Places .......................................................................................................................................... 5

Privacy> Applications and Websites ......................................................................................................... 6

Privacy> Block List ..................................................................................................................................... 8

Don’t Hide Behind the Curtain .................................................................................................................. 8

About the Author......................................................................................................................................... 9

***Privacy Settings Excerpt***




Section VII - Privacy Matters

When I say “privacy matters,” that means we’re going to discuss matters concerning your

privacy on Facebook. At the same time, I also mean that privacy does, in fact, matter . I do not

want the overplayed media hype of online stalkers to discourage you. After all, stalkers can find

you at a shopping mall, in your office or at the gym, and nothing is worse than being stalked in

spandex. However, unlike the real world, Facebook gives you tools to block and remove

troublesome “friends.” Nevertheless, you still need to take all available proactive precautions so

that wannabe stalkers will wannabe bothering someone else.

You can ensure your Privacy Settings are set to your liking by clicking on Account> Privacy

Settings in the upper right-hand corner of any page. This will take you to your Privacy Settings

page where you customize your Basic Directory Information, what you share, applications,

and anyone you want to block. I recommend that as soon as you sign up, you grab a cup of

coffee or tea one morning and go through all of these, one by one.

NOTE: In December 2009, Facebook upgraded their Privacy Settings. If you have not

gone in and customized your Privacy Settings since that date, your settings were likely

defaulted to sharing your status updates and other information with the world. Please follow the steps in this section to ensure that what you need to stay private stays as

private as possible.1

Privacy> Basic Directory Information

Under Privacy> Basic Directory Information, you can customize how others can find you,

what they can see and how they can contact you. I have mine set so that anyone can send me

a direct message, but everything else is “Friends of Friends,” or “Friends Only.” And, some of

my “interests” and other personal items are restricted even more (i.e., I exclude people on myLimited Profile and Restricted Friend Lists).

1Be aware that you should never assume anything written or shared on a social network will remain

completely private.

DWC Tip: Remember that Facebook promotes

openness. When doing anything on Facebook, you should

assume that Facebook is going to announce it or make public

as much information as possible. It’s up to you to rein it in

with your Account and Privacy Settings.




Those that I’ve marked “other” are ones that I’ve restricted to only a subset of my friends. I

strongly recommend that you go through each and every option under “Customize settings.”

Remember: Facebook’s default settings are always “everyone” or “friends;” it’s up to you to go

back and exclude people either individually or with Friend Lists.

Privacy> Places

NOTE: In August 2010, Facebook upgraded their Privacy Settings to include Facebook

Places (a geographic location service). Security experts recommend that you do not

participate. If you have not gone in and customized your Privacy Settings since August 2010, your location settings will stay defaulted to “on.”

Facebook’s newest service is a geographic location service, similar to FourSquare where

people can use their phones to “check in” at various retail establishments. Why check in?

Because you can earn points similar to a frequent coffee card buyer, or even be declared

“Mayor” of a place. People do it for the points, for the fun of it, or to let others know where they

are. Retailers like it as it promotes their businesses and rewards their best customers.

Personally, I’m not a fan as I’m a bit wary of telling people exactly where I am, nor do I think my

friends really want to know where I am. As stated above, Facebook launched this new service

by turning it “on” for everyone. To turn it off, go to Account> Privacy> Sharing on Facebook.Click on “Customize settings” as noted above, then follow the steps outlined on the next page.




1. Set “Places I check in” to “Only Me.”

2. Uncheck “enable” in “Include me in ‘People Here Now’ after I check in.”

3. Scroll down, and under “Things others share,” disable “Friends can check me in to Places.”

There … now you are back to where you should be, until you choose to do otherwise.

Privacy> Applications and Websites

At the bottom left of your Privacy Settings main screen is a link to edit your settings for

Applications and Websites. This will bring you to a screen where you can set your privacy for

games, applications, information accessible through your friends’ profiles, instant

personalization and public search. Of all the settings, these are the most important to your

privacy because they involve total strangers and companies. If you don’t customize, then

third-party developers of websites and applications can get access to your information both

through your own Profile and through your friends’ Profiles.




Here’s how I have mine set:

• Game and application activity is set as “Only Me” for the default. I don’t participate in

any group games or activities on Facebook, so limiting this doesn’t affect my user

experience.

• Info accessible through your friends means that anything you share with your friends

can be viewed by any application they download. I recommend that you set this so that

nothing gets shared.

• Instant personalization is when you visit a partner website outside of Facebook and

that site is enabled to act as an extension of Facebook. What happens is that third-party

site will be able to read your Facebook information and try to personalize your

experience on their site. I recommend turning this off.

• Public search controls whether things you've specifically chosen to share with

“everyone” will show up in Facebook and Google or other search engines. It also

controls whether people who enter your name in a search engine will see a preview of

your Facebook profile. I recommend turning this off. If you want a publicly searchable

Facebook Profile, create a business Page.




Privacy> Block List

If someone is bothering you, or you don’t want an ex to see or comment on your Wall, then you

can block them. This means that they cannot see your Profile or comments that you make, and

you cannot see theirs. They do not get a notice that you blocked them. However, the next time

they go to look for you, they won’t be able to find you (nor you them). Depending on yoursituation, it might make sense to do some proactive blocking (nosy in-laws, ex’s, your boss,

company interns).

To block individuals, you can click on the link on your Privacy page in the center at the bottom

of the screen. On the next screen, just enter the person’s email or name and then click “Block.”

Note that you can also block things (rather than people) like invitations from applications and to

events.

Don’t Hide Behind the Curtain

Now I don’t want the need for privacy to discourage you. Facebook is a fabulous way to

communicate and network, and it really only takes a few minutes to update your Privacy

Settings. Besides, you can always go back and change your preferences whenever you want.

However, if you are going to network online, it really doesn’t do much good if you stay

completely hidden. People want to know the real you on Facebook, just like Dorothy wanted to

know the real Wizard of Oz. Put your manufactured self away and let your true self venture out

from behind the curtain. Of course, you’ll occasionally have people sending you friend requests

who may not be of interest to you. But, this is not much different from meeting someone at a

cocktail event who might bore you a bit or with whom you have nothing in common. Stuff likethat happens all the time, and we would never storm over to the hosts and rant about it. Nor

would we let one bad experience keep us from attending a future networking event.

Interacting with all sorts of people is part of networking in person as well as on Facebook and

any other online networks. The only difference is that online networks provide you with tools to

handle this that do not exist in the real world.

DWC Tip: If you don’t want your comments to ever be

made public in a court of law, then use your PrivacySettings. If the general public had/has access to your

Facebook wall or comments then presumably those are

subject to discovery in civil litigation. This was the

interpretation of a recent ruling in the California case, Crispin

v. Audigier .




Facebook, when used appropriately, can be a fun way to network with friends and family. I

hope that since you now have this instruction manual, you take the time to join in and

participate!

Diane K. Danielson

About the Author

Diane K. Danielson is a new media consultant who works with companies to integrate social

media into their business development and marketing programs. A

popular speaker on the topic of social media, she is also the founder

of the Downtown Women’s Club (www.DowntownWomensClub.com),

a national in-person and online community for business women.

In 2007, Diane co-authored The Savvy Gal’s Guide to Online

Networking (or What Would Jane Austen Do?). She currently blogs

about business and technology on the Downtown Women’s Club blog

and reviews books for Entrepreneur magazine’s Daily Dose blog

(http://blog.entrepreneur.com).

Diane partners with convengine, LLC, (www.Convengine.com) a full-

service social media consulting company to provide clients with

everything they need to build their communities and brands online. For more about Diane, visit

her website at www.DianeDanielson.com.

**************************************************

Thank you for reading! This eBook excerpt is from The Smart Employee’s Guide to Facebook®

and its counterpart, The Downtown Women’s Club Beginner’s Guide to Facebook® (Aug. 2010

update). If you would like to receive the complete eBook, please visit our website at

www.DowntownWomensClub.com and join today for only $49/year! Or, you can purchase the

Smart Employee version of the book for $9.95 at http://scr.bi/smartfacebookguide.

See the next page for the complete Table of Contents.




The Smart Employee’s Guide to Facebook ® - Contents

Introduction – Facing up to Facebook 4

Section I – Time Management 5

Section II – Finding Your Way Around 8

Your Profile 8

Profile Picture 9

Relationships 9

Likes and Interests 10

Education and Work 10

Contact Information 11

Profile Tabs 11

Usernames 14

Notes (Your Facebook Blog) 14

Home Page/News Feed 16

Bacn (“Bacon”) versus Spam 17

What Do You Do on the News Feed Page? 18

Facebook Messaging 25

Section III – Facebook Friends 27

Friends versus Facebook Friends 27

What’s Your Friending Philosophy? 28

For Active Frienders, Get to Know the Friend Finder 29

Friend Lists 30

Subscribing to Friends 32




Section IV – Applications & Notifications 33

Applications – The Bells & Whistles 33

Notifications – What to Know and When to Know It? 34

Section V – Groups & Pages 35

Groups 35

Pages 35

Section VI – Events, Photos & Chat 38

Events 38

Photos 38

Chat 40

Section VII – Privacy Matters 41

Privacy> Basic Directory Information 41

Privacy> Sharing 42

Privacy> Places 43

Privacy> Applications and Websites 44

Privacy> Book List 46

Don’t Hide Behind the Curtain 46

About the Author 47

the smart employee's guide to facebook privacy settings excerpt

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