Making Sense of Facebook’s Privacy Settings

If you’re concerned with your privacy, Facebook may be one of the websites that is on your radar. Today we’re going to be talking about upkeeping your security on Facebook so you can figure out how to control your identity while using this network.

For starters, we need to point out that the best way to control your privacy is by limiting what you post online. Unfortunately, there’s more to it than that such as location sharing, that you might not feel like you’re in control of.

Should I Just Quit Facebook?

This is a decision we’re going to let you decide on your own. Today, we’re going to help you protect your security on Facebook so if you’d like to continue using Facebook, you can do so safely.

Facebook’s Privacy History

Here are some examples of some of the many privacy issues that have been revealed throughout the years:

  • 2007: Facebook had a way for companies to track purchases of Facebook users and could notify their friends what they bought, without the users consent.
  • 2011: Facebook was charged by the FTC because they allowed private information to be made public without warning. Basically, Facebook was letting third parties access information without any consent.
  • 2013: A bug exposed the email addresses and phone numbers of 6 million Facebook users.
  • 2014: An experiment was run by Facebook to see if they could make their users depressed by showing them depressing content… turns out, they could.
  • 2015: Facebook finally decided that their apps shouldn’t have access to everything… until then, their apps had access to all of the private data they wanted. 
  • 2018: There was a massive 50 million user data breach that Facebook knew about but did absolutely nothing about until they looked bad.

These are only the privacy related issues that Facebook has dealt with in the past few years without even touching on any of the other scandals.

Facebook’s Privacy Options

First use your computer to log in to Facebook.

Click the small down arrow on the top right and go to settings.

Click “Privacy.”

You can set different privacy options for the public, friends, friends except…, and only me. You can also choose who you want to see what. This can be edited through the “who can see future posts,” “review all your posts and thinks your tagged in,” “activity log,” “limit the audience for posts you’ve shared with friends of friends or public,” “who can see friend requests,” “who can see your friends list,” “who can look you up using email,” “who can look you up using phone number,” and “do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile” options. Each of these options makes it easier for you to manage your security.

Want Facebook to Know Where You Are?

Facebook can track your history. They won’t share that data to your friends but there are a ton of reasons why you wouldn’t want Facebook to collect this information. To change this, go to settings and click “Location.” You can see what facebook already knows about you by going to the location history section. But to turn this off, you will need to be on your mobile device.

Now, on the Facebook app, using the 3 bar icon in the top right corner to get to Settings & Privacy. Go to “manage your location settings” tap on “location access” and turn off the location history tracking. You will also want to go to “background location” and turn that off as well. Then, delete your location history by going to “privacy shortcuts” and “manage your location settings.” You’ll need your password to delete your location history. 

Was That Overwhelming?

This is how to protect your security on Facebook. If you ever need help protecting security for a business, give MyTek a call at 623-312-2444.

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