The Complete Guide to Facebook Privacy Settings – Social Media Awareness

Here are a few Facebook privacy settings that you must be aware of. Guide to Social Media Awareness

Privacy has always been an issue for Facebook users in recent times. With the government and public continuously questioning the security of their data, Facebook is always trying to satisfy them with different solutions every time. It is always about who can see what about whom on social media platforms. The privacy settings in Facebook can help people personalize their data to an extent. This article will walk you through everything that Facebook privacy settings provide to their users.

Every post we upload or any activity we perform on Facebook contains various information about us, such as location, date and time, our interests, and etcetera. We can control this using a few options provided by Facebook, lets see what they are in detail.

Tips to protect your privacy on Facebook.

Manage your off-Facebook activity so that you will not be tracked around the web. Even when you are not using Facebook, other websites and apps share your interests so that Facebook’s analytics uses them to attract you in their app. You can overcome this by going into Settings & Privacy and clearing your off-Facebook activity data.

Stop sharing your location details so that you are not targeted by businesses which come to know your location through Facebook. Even when the app is idling in the background your live location is shared and used in different ways. The solution for this is inside Facebook settings and also on your device’s settings. Reach Location services in Privacy settings and deny to share your location. You can also use “Allow while using the app option” to let Facebook use your location data.

Don’t let Facebook recognize your face on posts or videos. Though Facebook claims to use facial recognition to help tagging friends and spotting fake accounts, this does not feel comfortable for many users. This data can be used in different ways to target us. To stop this, edit the “Control face recognition” option inside Settings and Privacy.

Use two-factor verification to protect your account from hackers. If you use the same password around the Internet you are more vulnerable to get hacked. This feature will send a verification code to you via SMS every time you log in to your Facebook account. Complaints rose up that Facebook shared the phone numbers for advertising purposes so using Google Authenticator can be more secure. Select “Use two-factor authentication” inside Security and Login settings to enable this feature.

Share your posts with limited friends so that identity theft scams can be avoided. Posts that are open to the public let our information out to be misused. Limit who sees your posts and profile by selecting the “Who can see your future posts?” option inside Privacy settings. Edit your audience inside the “Limit The Audience for Old Posts on Your Timeline” option and share posts to a close circle of friends and family.

7 Facebook Privacy Settings that you must check.

Control targeted ads by adjusting the Ad settings inside Facebook. Though we cannot stop Facebook’s marketing services from using our information, we can take a little control over the data we share that is used for targeted advertising. Open Ad Settings and turn the toggles off after selecting the “Data about your activity from partners” option, do the same for “Social Interactions” and “Ads shown off of Facebook.”

Stop other websites from sharing your data with Facebook so that your interests and activities are not floating all over the Internet. You can install the Facebook Container extension with just a few clicks in the Firefox browser to avoid this problem. Any website that has Facebook buttons will give the license to Facebook’s surveillance and the analytics take care of your data. You can also install ad-blocking extensions such as “Ublock,” “Privacy Badger,” or “Disconnect” to disable Facebook from tracking you.

Manage Facebook’s other social media platforms such as Instagram and WhatsApp to be more private. Facebook owns many services which help them to track you and suck your data. Use every platform with caution and think twice before you share posts on any other social media sites you use, because it might reflect on the Facebook newsfeed you scroll every day.

Your data is your asset and in this data-driven world any little information shared publicly can help organizations to manipulate you with their strategies. Be vigilant and don’t put up information that doesn’t have any necessity to be shared. Use every privacy feature that is available both in your app settings and the phone settings.