Internet | 5 things you should know about Facebook privacy

By Anna Malczyk

If you are interested in this topic, take a look at our University of Cape Town Internet Super-User course.

Facebook has received a lot of negative attention recently because of the changes that have been made to the social network’s privacy and sharing settings. Users have become concerned that their private information is being shared without their knowledge and permission.

So, what can you do to keep your information safe? Here are five top tips on Facebook privacy.

1. Know what information is public
There are some pieces of information that you can never hide on Facebook. These include your name, profile picture, location and even your connections and hobbies. If you are uncomfortable with this information being displayed, delete or edit the content on your profile.

2. Know what “everyone” means
The Facebook setting for sharing your information with “everyone” really does cover everyone in the world – or, at least, anybody who searches for you on Google, regardless of whether they have a Facebook profile themselves. To keep your information out of the public eye, make sure you only share it with friends and friends of friends.

3. Deactivation doesn’t remove your account
If you want to remove your profile from Facebook all together, you cannot simply deactivate it. Deactivating is really only the equivalent of logging out – all of your information is stored in case you want to reactivate your profile. To truly remove yourself from Facebook, you have to follow the complex and obscure two-week deletion procedure.

4. Friends can share your data without knowing it
Facebook’s recent introduction of the web-wide “Like” button raises some serious privacy concerns, because a friend who “likes” content on a Facebook-affiliated site automatically shares your public information with that site. This means that your profile information may appear there, even if you have never visited the page. To prevent this, you have to block each of the affiliated sites from sharing your info individually.

5. Don’t share anything private
The best tip for Facebook privacy is to recognise that the internet is a constantly changing place, and that anything you put online could fall into the wrong hands. The best way to stay private is quite simply not to share any private information about yourself. Be the strong link in your privacy and think before you post anything sensitive and confidential.

Read the BBC article on Facebook’s privacy crisis meeting to find out more.
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution license.