I've written several posts previously about protecting your privacy on Facebook. If you haven't read them, I recommend you do before continuing with this one.

Privacy Controls in Facebook Pt. 1

Privacy Controls in Facebook Pt. 2

Reader Question: Restricting Access to Wall Posts on Facebook

Huge Correction re. Facebook Wall Privacy

This post and my next one will clarify some points from some of those earlier posts as well as add some new things I've since discovered.

What it means to restrict access to your Wall.

This has come up in a few questions I've received from readers, so hopefully I can clarify this.

The most important thing to understand is that there is no single setting that lets you restrict access to all the content on your Wall. That's because, when Facebook launched their new design a few months ago, they changed the actual concept of the Wall. Previously, it had been its own application, just like Photos, Notes, quizzes, etc. Now, it's the place where all those things get published (unless you specifically choose not to publish a certain item). So, to restrict access to everything on your Wall, you would have to go into each and every application you've installed and set those controls individually.

But, you may be asking yourself, what are all those references to the Wall in the Privacy settings talking about? Good question.

On the page for setting your Profile controls, you'll see the following dropdown box:

This box ONLY lets you set who can see posts that your friends have written on your Wall—not things you've posted there yourself.

Additionally—and this is something I've only recently discovered myself—when you prevent someone from reading other people's posts, you also prevent them from being able to write on your Wall as well. I'm not sure what the logic is there. I can certainly see a situation where I would want to be the only person who sees what my friends are writing on my Wall, but if I set that control to Only Me, then no one would even be able to write on it.

If you want to prevent certain people from seeing what you've written on your Wall, you need to use the dropdown box a little higher up, labeled Status and Links.

To Facebook, a status update is when you write something in your "What's on your mind?" box without attaching anything else to it, like a photo or a link. So this control ONLY covers those status updates and when you link to some other website. If you want to prevent people from seeing your photos or notes you write or quizzes you take that are published to your Wall, you need to change the settings in each of those applications separately.

What "Everyone" means.

In one of my earlier posts, I said that if you set an application to Everyone, it meant everyone on Facebook. Turns out, it means everyone on the Internet. Now, to be frank, I'm not entirely sure what that means exactly. But I think it means if you post a picture of yourself doing belly shots in Vegas (and tag it as such), then if someone were to Google "belly shots Vegas," they could see your photo.

While this might sound worrisome, but if you set something to Everyone, thinking it meant only everyone on Facebook, well... that still meant more than 200 million people (most of whom I assume you don't know) would be able to see it. Doesn't seem that much worse to extend that out to the rest of the world.

What you have virtually no control over.

Even with all the privacy controls Facebook does offer, there are two major areas where you basically have no control. The first is the Recent Activity section on your Wall. This is the section partway down that lists things you've done on Facebook, like friending someone, writing on another person's Wall, became a fan of a Page, etc.

For some reason, there are only three activities that you can choose to show or not: when you remove profile info, post on a discussion board, or add a friend. If you do want to change one of those, go to Settings > Privacy > News Feed and Wall and scroll down to this section:

Now, since the only way people can see your Recent Activity is to go to your Wall (i.e. it doesn't show up on their home pages), this probably isn't a really big deal. Plus, you can always delete an item in that section, if necessary, by mousing over it and clicking the Remove button that appears.

The other area where you have no control—the one I get the most questions about—is when someone comments on something on your Wall. Basically, the only way to prevent someone from commenting on something—whether it's a status update,
posted photo, quiz result, or announcement about a great bingo you scored in Lexulous—is to prevent them from seeing those posts in the first place.

Likewise, you can't prevent anyone from reading anyone else's comments without preventing them from seeing the post.

This is a real shortcoming as far as I'm concerned. You might be very circumspect about what you post but how do you control what your "wacky" friends decide to add for additional color? And maybe, just maybe, you don't want your mother or boyfriend, or boss to see some of these comments.

Of course, like with Recent Activity, you can always delete a comment you don't like. The difference is that comments DO appear on your news feed, under the original post, which means your friends may see the comment on their home pages before you have a chance to delete it.

What I'd love to see is the ability to have comments sent to you before they're published so you could approve them first. Unfortunately, in my search through the Help files, I see this is a feature that's been requested by many people for a very long time and it hasn't happened yet, so I'm not exactly holding my breath for it.

So there are some more things to add to your list if you're concerned about your privacy on Facebook (as you should be!) Check back soon for a few more...

Posted in Facebook, How To, Privacy/Security, Social Media