Facebook's privacy settings are complicated and change often, making it hard for people to take control of their privacy on the world's largest social network. Facebook made major changes to its privacy controls in 2011, so some older controls either no longer apply or have moved to other areas of your Facebook pages.
It's important to pay attention to your privacy settings on Facebook and learn the basics of how to control who sees the content you are sharing. Otherwise, Facebook likely will choose default settings that will share more information with the public than you intend or want.
There are two basic ways to access privacy controls on Facebook:
- By clicking "Privacy Settings" in the pull-down menu in the top corner to the right of your name on most Facebook pages (outlined in red in the screen shot above.) This takes you to the general privacy settings page, where you should take the time to wade through all the options. They are explained below and on the two subsequent pages of this tutorial.
- By accessing what Facebook calls the inline privacy controls or "inline audience selector," a pulldown menu appearing right next to whatever content you are posting or sharing. This inline privacy menu is supposed to make it easier to choose different privacy settings for different types of content, so you can make sharing decisions on a case-by-case basis.
Facebook Privacy Controversy
Privacy advocates have long criticized Facebook for collecting too much information about its users and not always clearly disclosing how it shares that user data with third parties. In late November 2011 Facebook agreed to settle a complaint filed with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission over its data disclosure policies.
The FTC's settlement order accused Facebook of deceiving its users by doing such things as abruptly changing their default privacy settings without advance notice. As part of the settlement, Facebook agreed to submit to privacy audits for the next two decades.Facebook chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg wrote a blog post about the settlement acknowledging that the social network he founded had made "a bunch of mistakes" involving privacy, but nonetheless saying that the agreement "formalizes our commitment to providing you with control over your privacy and sharing. . . "
Do Facebook Default Settings Over Share?
Privacy advocates and regulators have long criticized the social network for setting default privacy options that make too much of each user's profiles public, which means it can be viewed by anyone and everyone. The result can be a loss of personal privacy for various reasons.
Many people want to make Facebook private so only their friends see most of what they post on the network.
On the next page, let's look at the basic Facebook sharing options which you access by clicking "Privacy Settings" in the pulldown menu as shown above.
