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Tweaking your Activity Log just became a necessary and tedious new part of being a Facebook user. Thanks to the service’s new Graph Search feature, all that profile info you’ve painstakingly updated over the years (employer, home town, relationship status, movie likes, etc) and all the photos you’ve added over time, are now to become data in a database of the social network’s trillion connections between a billion users.
Before Facebook rolls out this new search engine to the masses, it is rolling it out in a very limited beta to select users. And while those ginnea pigs test it out, the rest of us will have the chance to tweak a few things to ensure that our dirty laundry isn’t so easily accessible. Granted, all this data has been available to our friends forever. We put it out there for them to see. All Facebook is doing is indexing that info for our friends, and friends of friends. No new data is being added and the general public won’t have access to the name of your mother or the college you attended.
But, if you would rather not have your friends of friends be able to search for “single women in new york from kansas who like big bang theory” and come up with your name, you’ll want to take a closer look at your profile.
First off, you might want to limit who can search for you in Facebook. To stop friends of friends from seeking you out:
1. Click the lock icon on the top right of your profile.
2. Click Edit next to “Who can look up your timeline by name”.
3. Select Friends from the drop-down menu that appears.
4. Click Close.
Next up, it’s time to check out your Activity Log and make sure you’re happy about all those photos your friends have tagged you in, the likes you’ve shared and the places you’ve checked in. The tedious part here is that you’ll need to review every item ever entered on your timeline. So, settle in, cause this could take a while.
1. Click the lock icon on the top right of your profile.
2. Click Use Activity Log next to “Review all your posts and things you’re tagged in”.
3. Click on the icon of two people’s heads to the right of any post, like, tag, comment, photo, etc. that you’d prefer to limit visibility.
4. Click Report/Remove Tag (in the event of a photo; language changes depending on type of entry).
5. Select “I want this photo removed from Facebook. “
6. Click Continue. A message will be sent to the person who posted that item, assuming it’s not you, requesting that they remove it.
The way Facebook works its privacy settings these days, you automatically limit future posts to just Friends. But, you may not have the same settings on your past post. To lock out friends of friends from your drunken freshers’ party pictures, you’ll need to:
1. Click the lock icon on the top right of your profile.
2. Click Limit Past Posts next to “Limit the audience for old posts on your timeline”.
3. Click Limit Old Posts. Note, this step cannot be easily undone, per a warning pop-up.
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…and that’s yet another reason to hate Facebook! Why isn’t there just an “opt out of Facebook Graph” switch? Because then it won’t make as much money, so f**k your privacy. Still glad I’m out of all that!
What a complete rigmoral. I’m aware of the irony that I am commenting on this Gizmodo article by logging into my Facebook account. But seriously, since the turn of the year I have been racking my brain as to the best way of quitting Facebook. I deleted it from my phone to prevent me accessing it during the day, but I really want to phase it out completely. The problem I have is that as a news agrigator it works really well. I follow a lot of bands who update their releases and gig details using Facebook. I want to have access to that information still without having to whore myself out to advertisers. Additionally it makes it easy to sign into websites and comment forums, but even that is to just gain more information on my web use. This search thing creeps the crap out of me. I dont understand why anyone would use it unless you’re stalking people. It’s info I dont need to know about anyone and it will not aid my life in anyway. Would Gizmodo consider doing an article on how to get rid of Facebook entirely ?
1. Click the lock icon on the top right of your profile.
2. Click Edit next to “Who can look up your timeline by name”.
3. Select Friends from the drop-down menu that appears.
4. Click Close.
Step 2 is not there for me, instead I have “Who can look you up using the email address or phone number you provided”
1. Search Google for “How to close my Facebook account”
2. Follow the steps
3. Less profit (for Facebook)
Cue the endless facebook posts now complaining about everything facebook does and saying “If they do one more thing, I’m quitting” or my favourite one:
“I hear by announce that Facebook or any associated companies cannot use the data on my account for advertising or any other use.
Post this on your account then Facebook can’t use your info!!!”
*rolls eyes*
And of course people moaning that it’s all about advertising and Facebook making money… Er, yes, someone’s got to pay to run the thing, it’s a business. Even my blog has ads on it.
Ads I have zero problem with. Facebook making money also. Invasion of privacy, or unclear privacy policies and settings, I sure as hell do have a problem with. As should everyone! Just look at the rigmarole required to get out of Facebook Graph detailed above – it’s not clear and straightforward. As I’ve said before, I don’t like it, and I’ve closed my account; everyone should be made aware of the potential pitfalls of using Facebook if they find the positives worth staying on for.
I absolutely agree with you on the privacy, I’ve been putting off even checking mine because of all the messing about you have to do. If you do find the need to use it, and personally I’m running out of reasons as most of my closest friends have reverted to using texts, there should be just a set of quick buttons to set everything to “everyone”, “friends of friends” and “friends”
And of course you should be able to easily make sure no personal details/lists of friends are passed to said advertisers.
Yeah. The one that annoys me is the people who complain about Facebook but then don’t quit it.
If its so terrible why use it lol.