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April 2010
Facebook wants to be a billboard of your everyday life, not a private messaging service. Following this logic, most privacy settings on your account default to views that everyone on Facebook (and sometimes the Internet) can see. School administrators and educators who participate on social networking sites, like Facebook, for personal reasons must pay attention to how public they want to make their private lives. Below are five privacy settings to ensure your Facebook experience remains fun and productive, not embarrassing or damaging. Manage the profile and contact information you share. You have the choice to share as much private information as you like on Facebook. On your profile, you can list your phone number, email address, education background, religious views, political views, relationship status and more. To control what people can see, under the Account tab, go to Privacy Settings. You will see sections for Contact Information and Profile Information. Here, for each piece of information, you can choose to share with friends only, friends of friends, everyone or no one. Do not allow friends to post to your wall. By eliminating others' ability to post to your wall, you are in complete control of what information is posted about you on your wall. To change these settings, under the Account tab, go to Privacy Settings and then Profile Information. Make sure the box for "Friends can post on my wall" is unchecked. Also, under Comments on Posts, select Customize and then Only Me so that people cannot respond to posts you make on your wall. Remove yourself from Facebook and public search listings. By default, your account is accessible to the Facebook community and public search engines like Google. You can hide your profile from search engines. Under Privacy Settings, select Search. Make sure Facebook Search Results is set to Only Friends and that the box for Public Search Results is unchecked. Create friend lists and use them. Maybe you want to use Facebook for business and personal reasons. If so, you would benefit from creating "mailing lists" for each group. This way, each time you post something to your wall, you can choose which group sees the post. To create lists, click on the Friends tab and then the Create a List tab. Don't let friends tag photos and videos of you. If you disable your friends' ability to "tag" you (i.e., identify you) in photos or videos, then your name will not appear in News Feeds when those items are posted. You can also "untag" photos or videos that have been tagged, which prevents anyone from tagging those items again. Unfortunately, aside from talking to a friend beforehand, you cannot prevent someone from uploading photos and videos of you. If you discover items that you don't want on Facebook, you'll have to contact the person who posted it and ask them to remove it. To protect yourself from unwanted tagging, click on Privacy Settings and then Profile Information. Under Photos and Videos of Me, choose Custom and select Only Me. This will ensure that only you can tag yourself. Please continue to write me with suggestions for future Tech Toolbox columns. Your feedback is always appreciated! TERRY MORAWSKI is the assistant superintendent of communications and marketing for Mansfield ISD. He is also the incoming president of the Texas School Public Relations Association. He can be reached at terrymorawski@gmail.com. |
It is hard to dismiss the popularity of Facebook. The social networking service has exploded to more than 400 million users since its modest beginnings in 2004 as a networking site for college students. It's a wonderful communications tool, but beware of the pitfalls. Remember: Facebook's business model is based on people connecting and sharing information.