Facebook Privacy Settings 2016: The Basics

Privacy concerns and privacy controls on Facebook are ever changing.   You may have set your controls a few months ago but Facebook are constantly reviewing these controls so even though you may have high security settings in the past, it is always good to go back and review them.

Why is privacy important?

When you post a picture of your at party, which one of your Facebook friends can share it?  What private information are those Facebook game apps collecting on you for "third-party uses"?  How do you make sure that live video stream is seen only by people you choose?  Every action you take on Facebook has privacy and sharing implications that need to be considered before you upload that next selfie.

Below is our step-by-step guide to taking full control of your Facebook privacy settings.

The basic privacy options

If you’re not ready to dive into Facebook’s substantial settings menu, there’s a more user-friendly guide through the more vital privacy settings.   By clicking the padlock symbol in the upper right of any Facebook page that you are logged into, you will get a dropdown window presenting you with walkthroughs of your current settings as they pertain to "Your Posts", "Your Apps" and "Your Profile".

Your posts

Starting with Your Posts, you can check your default sharing setting.  We recommend the Friends setting over the Public one.  When set to Public all your posts can be seen by anyone on or off Facebook.  Unless you're a celebrity or running a page that is used to generate interest in a business you run, you will likely want to keep your activity restricted to those you have Friended.

The Friend setting has a few tweaks you should be aware of as well.  By clicking on the sharing setting button, then the More Options button, you will see the Custom option.  Click on that and you will see that you can include all your Friends, while excluding the names of certain Facebook friends you don't want seeing your updates.  It is also important to note that the Friends of anyone tagged in your post or photos will be able to see that post unless you uncheck the option in this window.

If you have joined any Facebook groups or made lists of Facebook friends, you can restrict the posts that way or hide your posts from those groups and lists as well.  You just want your college friends to see your late night party pictures?  You want to make sure your work friends don't see your selfie at the beach when you called in sick?   This is where these restrictions could come in handy both on a per post basis or as an overall option.

Your apps

Remember the Candy Crush Facebook game you played too much last year?  How about that Tumblr Facebook app you forgot you installed?  Each app on the site you agreed to install has permission to post to your Friends list unless you told it otherwise at the time you installed it.  Can't remember?  This part of the tool shows you each app attached to your account and what sharing permissions it has.  These settings also control who can see that you have the app installed.

If you don't use the app anymore, just delete it by clicking on the x. While checking my own app list while writing this guide, I found many apps I no longer use that had sharing rights on my account.  I deleted all that I'm not actively using and set the sharing permissions of the remaining ones to Only Me.

Finally, remember that you can change the sharing settings of any individual Facebook update by clicking on the sharing button to the left of the Post button.   You can even go back to change settings of previous posts by clicking on the people icon at the top of the post, to the right of the date stamp.

Your profile

Here you can see the privacy setting on your email addresses, birthday, hometown, relationship status and other personal details about your life. Under emails it will show the one you registered with when you first signed up for Facebook as well as one Facebook has assigned to you (which you likely will never use). I discovered that I left my Gmail account public, which I hadn't meant to.

For your birthday, the sharing settings are split between the day/month and the year. That way your Friends can wish you happy birthday on Facebook on your special day without necessarily knowing your exact age.

For hometown, this setting only affects what your Friends can see. Advertisers and others may still access this information, especially if you are using the Facebook app which tracks your location automatically.

Finally, if you have set a relationship with another Facebook user, it will be shared unless you set otherwise.

It's important to note that this is only a PARTIAL list of the information you're sharing. To see the full list, click the About Page button, which will take you to your profile page. On there, you can review the various sections—Work and Education, Places You've Lived, Contact and Basic Info, Family and Relationships, Details About You—and make changes hovering over each and clicking the link that appears.