Facebook; being a vast platform for the web users to communicate with the known-ones alongside sharing news, images, and videos, has posed a threat to them in terms of the privacy risks. As many of the registered FB users have no idea of how to protect Facebook account security breach; others who know about the same, are not able to secure the Facebook privacy despite having affirmative intent.
Whenever you sign up for any social media account say, Facebook; it starts collecting the personal information that is supposed to be filled up along with other details such as likes and dislikes, maintains records of images and videos shared alongside other activities which you perform upon accessing Facebook account. With so many details stored by this social networking podium along with the frequency and duration of the activities practiced by you, it can be a challenging process to secure your Facebook account of the sudden data breach.
Though FB offers customized privacy settings, many users are not able to avail the benefits of it by making the necessary modifications in the same or restrict the unknown users from viewing their personal details. The statistics revealed Facebook account privacy and security is at stake for more than 13 million FB users in the United States; who do not show their desire to make amendments in the network privacy control settings or are not aware of the same due to which they do not think about making modifications.
Even if you have locked down the Facebook Privacy settings, please perform a double-check to know the extra bit of things in which modification is required. As FB search settings have been changed, personal details of the user are visible to everyone on the web once they type a name in the Facebook search bar. In order to restrict the visibility of your private data on Facebook, there are certain steps that need to be implemented. Follow the steps carefully and restrict the accessibility of personal data, which is visible to the unknown people.
The Most Important Ways to Protect Your Privacy on Facebook
Infographic source: Vound-software.
Steps to Protect Your Privacy on Facebook Account
Logging into Facebook Account:
Sign into a Facebook account using the correct login credentials.Once the dashboard is displayed, scroll your mouse to the gear icon.
Click on the same and drop down list appears in which you can find the option “Privacy Settings”.
Navigate your mouse to the privacy settings and tool option and click on it to open a new slide.
Make Modifications in the Privacy Settings
Start editing the options listed in the privacy settings one by one starting from the first one“Who can see my stuff”.
Click on the edit button and change the option from ‘Public’ (as seen by default) to ‘Friends’ or ‘Only Me’ as per your requirement.
Other than this, review all your posts and other items in which you’re tagged with.
Click on ‘Use Activity Log’ link to find the posts or images in which your FB profile is tagged.
Click on Add to Timeline or Hide button to accept or remove Tags.
Now, limit the audience for posts or images, you have shared with friends or known ones by clicking on the link Limit past posts.
Now start making modifications in the option “Who can contact me” in which restrictions can be applied to the following options by clicking the edit button:
- Who can send you the friend Request? – Click on the edit button to choose the any of the options between a friend of friends or everyone. It is recommended to choose the option friend of friends rather than everyone (which is seen as the default).
- Whose messages do I want to be filtered into my inbox: You are asked to perform the basic filtering, by allowing the emails in the inbox sent by a specific group. The best option recommended is Friends rather than selecting the option everyone as an unknown person can send spam messages.
Now the last few attributes of which settings need to be modified are:
- Who can look you up using the email address you provided: Select the option as Friends to restrict the users from finding you on the Facebook.
- Who can look you up using the phone number you provided: Though you will see Public as the default option, click on edit button and select the option friends to avoid misuse of your contact number by an unknown person.
Timeline and Security Settings:
You can now take decisions, who can tag you in photos or news update or who can post news or update on your FB wall. The option is available to you whether or not to accept the tag request or review tags to post it on the timeline.
• Who can add things to my timeline?
• Who can see things in my timeline?
• How can I manage tags, people, tagging suggestions?
Click on the edit link corresponding to each option and select friends or only me option to protect your privacy on Facebook.
• Who can add things to my timeline?
• Who can see things in my timeline?
• How can I manage tags, people, tagging suggestions?
Click on the edit link corresponding to each option and select friends or only me option to protect your privacy on Facebook.
Security Settings:
Scrutinize the Security tab on the left sidebar and find out if any unauthorized access is made to your Facebook account. You can find the same by clicking on the recognized device link. Other than there are several other options such as Secure Browsing, Login Notifications, Login Approvals, Code generator, App Passwords, Trusted contacts in which edit link is shown corresponding to them, clicking which necessary settings need to be adopted to secure the FB account from any unauthorized access.
A Shortcut to Privacy settings:
If you want to access privacy settings in quick time, a shortcut is available as you can click the little lock as seen at the top navigation bar. Once it is clicked, three options are available which are as follows:
• Who can see my stuff
• Who can contact me
• How do I stop someone from bothering me
• Who can see my stuff
• Who can contact me
• How do I stop someone from bothering me
Activity Log:
As you click the privacy settings shortcut button, click on the option “Who can see my stuff”. Once it is clicked, you will find the option Activity Log to find the time and hour on which Facebook account was accessed from different locations. If you find something suspicious in this activity log, then immediately secure your FB account by making changes in the account settings most important among which is a password, that is key to the accessibility of social media account.
Doing this, you can modify the settings of every single post that have been created in the past and decide which one of them need to be locked down or kept public. Other than this, you can easily remove or accept tags on the post or images published by someone on your wall.
The posts, which were earlier liked by you, can now be unlike by clicking on the thumb icon, you can undo all activities such as commenting on the image or video shared by others or delete them immediately by accessing the particular posts or images in quick time to maintain Facebook Privacy and Security
Doing this, you can modify the settings of every single post that have been created in the past and decide which one of them need to be locked down or kept public. Other than this, you can easily remove or accept tags on the post or images published by someone on your wall.
The posts, which were earlier liked by you, can now be unlike by clicking on the thumb icon, you can undo all activities such as commenting on the image or video shared by others or delete them immediately by accessing the particular posts or images in quick time to maintain Facebook Privacy and Security
Maintaining Privacy on Images:
Hover your mouse to photo-album and click on any of them. Now all the images in a particular album are displayed or listed at one time. Go to the privacy option of each photo and edit the privacy setting option from Public to Friends or Only me. The same process needs to be applied to images stored in another album.
If you want to hide the photos or a particular album from a particular person in your friend's list, click on the custom option and type the name of that Fb account holder in the section “ Do not show photo album to users”. Click on the Done button to make changes effective.
Likewise, you can adopt the option to share photo albums with particular users. Click on the custom option of that photo album and type the name of FB users in the section “ Show photo albums to the users”. Click on done button to make changes effective.
If you want that only friend and know ones are supposed to contact you then make modifications in the privacy settings under the section “Who can contact me”. There are options available in the list like everyone, friends, and friend of friends. Select friends or friends of a friend and click on done button to enable the changes.
Do remember that whenever a single post is shared on the Facebook wall, it gets saved on the internet and is being marked as a permanent record. The people who know you very well can take your images by searching on Google or another major search engine without being aware that you want to stay private on Facebook. Therefore, it is advised to think twice before revealing personal details on any other social media site other than Facebook. If you have already shared your personal details on FB then keep it secure by changing your FB password time to time.
If you want to hide the photos or a particular album from a particular person in your friend's list, click on the custom option and type the name of that Fb account holder in the section “ Do not show photo album to users”. Click on the Done button to make changes effective.
Likewise, you can adopt the option to share photo albums with particular users. Click on the custom option of that photo album and type the name of FB users in the section “ Show photo albums to the users”. Click on done button to make changes effective.
If you want that only friend and know ones are supposed to contact you then make modifications in the privacy settings under the section “Who can contact me”. There are options available in the list like everyone, friends, and friend of friends. Select friends or friends of a friend and click on done button to enable the changes.
Do remember that whenever a single post is shared on the Facebook wall, it gets saved on the internet and is being marked as a permanent record. The people who know you very well can take your images by searching on Google or another major search engine without being aware that you want to stay private on Facebook. Therefore, it is advised to think twice before revealing personal details on any other social media site other than Facebook. If you have already shared your personal details on FB then keep it secure by changing your FB password time to time.
