1. Adjust Your Third-Party Apps
Settings
Those aforementioned quizzes and other apps on Facebook
usually require you to grant access in order to use them — and it’s easy to
remember to “ungrant” that access once you’re finished. "Access"
means those apps remain linked to your account, with access to your personal
information. Facebook comes right out and states this, though the reminder is
placed deep within your apps settings page:
"On Facebook, your name, profile picture, cover photo,
gender, networks, username, and user id are always publicly available to both
people and apps. Learn why. Apps also have access to your friends list and any
information you choose to make public."
The good news is it’s fairly easy to unlink those apps, if
you know how:
Click the
downward-facing triangle at the top right of your profile page, then scroll
down to "Settings."
Once in the
Settings, click the “Apps” section. You’ll be taken to a list of all
third-party apps that you’ve granted access to your account.
Scroll to the
bottom of this list, locate the “Apps, Websites and Plugins” box, click edit,
and click “Disable Platform.” On the same App Settings page, find the “Apps
Others Use” box, and click Edit. You’ll then be able to select which of your
personal information is shared when any of your friends use apps, including
your bio, your birthday, your recent Facebook activity and even your religious
and political affiliations.
2. Tweak Your Sharing Settings
You can dictate who will see what you post to Facebook. By
default, your profile is set to “Public,” meaning anyone on the social network
can see your information and posts. Here’s how to limit the audience that can
see what you post:
Go to your
Facebook settings by following the directions above.
Click on “Privacy”
and you’ll be taken to a page where you can edit “Who can see your posts?” Best
practice is to choose “Friends Only” for many or all of these settings. You can
also customize a list of Facebook friends who will see your posts, or choose to
keep your posts private to yourself only.
In the Privacy
settings area, you can also opt out of Facebook’s facial recognition system,
which scans photos posted to the sites and makes tagging suggestions to other
users.
3. Get a Privacy Checkup
Facebook does offer a handy link that allows a quick
adjustment to your account settings.
Click the question
mark in the top right section of the menu bar on your profile page.
Scroll down to
“Privacy Checkup.”
You’ll be able to
quickly view who can see your posts, which apps are currently linked to your
account, and what personal information can be seen, and by whom. The checkup
option allows you to adjust these all in one place — and lets you edit personal
information (update or delete your hometown, relationship status, etc.) — but
it shouldn’t replace the deeper dives listed above.
4. Limit or
Restrict Ad Preferences
If you don’t want Facebook to serve up custom ads based on
your personal information and site use, you can opt out of that program as
well.
Once signed in, go
to the Facebook Ad Preferences settings page.
In the Ad settings
section, toggle each option to “Off.” This restricts Facebook from using its
affiliated sites, and apps you’ve used through its own site, to serve up ads
based on your data.
In the Ad
Preferences section, you can also view advertisers, companies and topics with
which you are linked through your actions on Facebook. Hundreds of topics
appeared on my list, and more than two dozen specific companies — a few of
which I had never heard of. If that makes you uncomfortable, you can delete
topics or companies by hovering over its respective icon and clicking the X.
5. Turn Off Your Mobile Device’s
Location Services
This privacy tweak isn’t restricted to Facebook, but the
site is one of many that uses the GPS location tracking in your smartphone or
mobile device to gain insight into your personality and habits. You can
restrict this access by changing your settings on your device.
iOS users (iPhones and iPads): Open your Phone Settings,
click to “Privacy” and then to “Location Services.” You have the option to turn
off all location services, and while from a privacy standpoint that’s
advisable, if you use your phone’s maps function often that could be
problematic. In that case, you can scroll down and disable location services on
an app-by-app basis, including Facebook.
Android users: Go to Account Settings, then “Location” and
make sure the Facebook access slider is set to
“Off.”
6. View Yourself as Others on
Facebook Do
One useful tool Facebook offers its users is the “View As”
option, which allows you to see your profile page as any Facebook user, either
a stranger or one of your friends, would when they look at your page. To see
this view:
Go to your profile
page and click on the three dots in the right-hand corner of your cover photo
(the large rectangular photo at the top of this page, not to be confused with
your profile photo, which is the smaller square photo that appears with your
name across the entire site).
Scroll down to the
“View As” option.
Once there, you
can see how your page appears to the general public. You also can see how it
appears to any of your Facebook friends, allowing you to make sure that any
customized settings you’ve enabled are working properly.
