Odds are, you have a Facebook page, or if you don’t, someone in your immediate family does. After all, more than 150 MILLION Americans use the site (as of June 2012), and in October, Facebook topped the 1 BILLION mark worldwide. That’s a lot of people, which also means a LOT of information being shared, in large part unintentionally public.
Did you know that, according to a recent Huffington Post online poll, over 25% of Facebook users don’t know how to change, or even view, their privacy settings? Nearly another 10% almost never look at, or make any changes to, their settings. That means 1 in 3 of us have little or no control over how the information we post to Facebook is shared, or seen by others.
Tomorrow, we will be starting the first in a series of posts designed to help you take charge of how you share your information on Facebook. For the most part we will be covering Facebook’s privacy settings, though we will also touch base on some security settings as well. We’ll be using screenshots whenever applicable, and will try not to force our readers to hold a PhD in computer lingo just to understand what’s going on!
One important caveat: The information in these posts is good today. Due to the frequency with which Facebook updates their operating system, we cannot guarantee that it will be good a month from now, or even tomorrow! It is up to you, once you have become familiar with how privacy settings work through these posts, to assume the responsibility of reviewing them on a fairly frequent basis.
Facebook’s creed is “More sharing!” so it’s very unlikely that any changes they make will work to add more protection to your privacy, despite what they might publicly state. Never the less, Facebook is still a valuable means to connect with friends past and present, and a useful tool for business as well. Like any tool, it is safest when used correctly. So, stay tuned! Tomorrow’s post will be on Active Sessions, or, why your status update shows you are in Tulsa when you’re really in Springfield!