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If you’re concerned with online privacy, your best bet is to delete your social media accounts and never look back. That said, if you’re not willing to go quite that far, there are some privacy and security settings you can play with to make your Facebook account more private. In this guide to
Facebook privacy settings, we’ll cover everything you need to know. There are a bunch of different privacy options inside Facebook’s settings panel, and navigating them all can be somewhat confusing. What makes this even worse is that Facebook changes these settings relatively frequently, so here we’ll take a look at the steps needed to navigate the new Facebook privacy settings.o Although these steps will make your Facebook profile a bit more locked down, the only way to truly protect your privacy from social media giants is to get rid of your accounts altogether. If that’s something you want to do, you can check out our guides on
how to delete Facebook and how to delete Instagram. 11/03/2021 Facts checked Updated guide to reflect changes in the Facebook privacy settings, added information about Facebook removing facial recognition software, and replaced
the images.
Before we dive into the advanced privacy settings that Facebook lets you adjust, let’s first do a quick security roundup to make sure that your account is safe from any unauthorized access. We’ll be using a web browser for these instructions, as it’s the easiest way to adjust all of your settings, but you can also use the Facebook app for some of them. How to Make a Strong PasswordThe first step to keeping any account secure is to make sure you have a strong password. You can do this in a couple of different ways, either by using a password manager, or by simply following some basic password best practices such as using numbers, symbols and both uppercase and lowercase letters. A long password is also preferable to a short one. If you’re not sure whether your password is strong, you can check its strength or generate a highly secure password using our password generator. Once you have a secure password ready, here’s how you can change your existing Facebook password.
How to Add Two-Factor AuthenticationSometimes not even a strong password is enough to keep your account safe. No matter how strong it is, if someone else gets a hold of your password, there’s nothing stopping them from logging into your account. The solution to this is two-factor authentication, which adds an extra layer of security. Here’s how you enable 2FA for Facebook.
How to Run a Security CheckupIf you’re not quite sure what measures you need to take to improve your account’s security, Facebook provides a security checkup feature that checks it all and lets you know if there are any improvements to be made. Here’s how you access it.
Adjusting the Privacy Settings on FacebookNow that we’ve covered the security side of things, let’s dive into how you can maximize the privacy of your Facebook account. How to Change Who Can See Your Future Facebook PostsThe first thing you should do to make your Facebook information more private is to change who can see your future posts.
How to Limit Past Posts’ Visibility ManuallyOnce you’ve made your future posts more private, it’s time to undo any privacy mistakes of the past and hide posts you’ve already made as well. There are two ways to do this: in bulk or manually for each individual post. First we’ll cover how to do it for individual posts.
How to Limit All Your Past Posts’ VisibilityIf you’d rather just limit the audience for all your past posts and photos all at once, you can do that too.
How to Make Your Facebook Profile PrivateMaking your Facebook profile as private as possible is a somewhat cumbersome process, as you’ll need to individually specify who can see all the different types of information tied to your profile page.
How to Turn off Facial RecognitionFew things are as blatantly harmful to online privacy as facial recognition. Facebook uses this to automatically identify you in pictures, including those that others post. However, on Nov. 2, 2021, Facebook announced it would end the use of facial recognition, with that change being complete by December. Until then, you can turn off facial recognition with the following steps.
How to Make Check-Ins Private on FacebookYou can’t really make check-ins completely private. This is because check-ins post to the page of the location or business you’re checking in to, as well as your own profile page. What you can do is hide the section on your profile that shows your past check-ins — here’s how.
How To Make Yourself Unsearchable on FacebookUnfortunately, it’s no longer possible to make yourself completely unsearchable on Facebook — not even if you change all the settings to “only me.” If someone uses your name to find you, you’ll always appear somewhere in the search results. What you can do is decide whether or not people can find you using your email address or phone number, and here’s how you do that.
Change Who Can See Your Friends ListAnother part of your online life that you might want to keep private is who your Facebook friends are. To do this you’ll need to limit who can see the friends list on your profile page.
Stop Other Search Engines From Displaying Your Facebook AccountIf you’ve ever googled your name, you might have noticed that one of the first results that pop up is your Facebook profile. Depending on how common your name is, this can make your online presence very easy to find for just about anyone. Luckily you can disable this in just a few steps.
Limit Who Can See What You FollowAnother thing you can stop people from seeing on your Facebook profile are the pages, people and groups that you follow.
Limit Who Can Send You Friend RequestsIt’s not uncommon to get flooded with random friend requests — usually from bots — if you don’t limit who can send you requests. Here’s how you make sure not just anyone can ask to be your friend on Facebook.
Revoke Permissions From Apps and WebsitesApps and websites that you use Facebook to sign in to will keep collecting your data long after you stop using the service in question. Therefore, it’s a good idea to routinely revoke app and website permissions.
Ads are the primary reason Facebook wants your personal information to begin with. For that reason, it makes sense to restrict your ad settings as much as you possibly can.
Final ThoughtsWith that we’ve reached the end of our Facebook privacy guide. As we’ve mentioned already, those actually concerned with their online privacy should stay as far away from Facebook as possible. However, for many the service has become a necessary utility and if that’s the case for you, you should at least do everything you can to make your account as private as it can be. Be sure to check out our piece on Facebook’s rebrand to Meta, too. What did you think of our instructions for how to make your Facebook private? Were they clear and easy to follow? Do you think we missed some crucial privacy settings? Let us know in the comments below. Thank you for reading. |