How Do You Keep Your Details Private On Facebook?
I’m beginning to regret a bit signing up for Facebook. Don’t get me wrong I love Facebook, but I need to find a better way to hide information from people I don’t know that well, or I wouldn’t even consider friends.
For instance, I got a Facebook invite this week from someone who I work with that I get on ok with professionally, but personally I can’t stand him. I felt forced into a corner as how could I reject his invitation, when he could see that I’d accepted all the other Facebook invitations?
I’m also a bit concerned that Facebook is making it harder for me to keep my work life separate from my personal life, which trust me, are very different! One of my colleagues also picked up on colleagues suddenly being able to see what she does in her spare time, when she wrote on another colleagues wall:
Remember, anything that goes on facebook, stays on facebook!
Facebook’s privacy settings don’t help either as I need more control than being able to turn access on or off to parts of my profile. What I almost need for instance is a Wall that anyone can post to, and a separate special Wall that only my ‘real’ friends can post to.
Even amongst my friends I almost need to be able to control what info they can see. For instance, the friends in my profile span all of my 33 years, so there are a lot of old girlfriends and random snogs mixed in there. At the moment only one of them has been brave (or silly?) enough to add this information to her profile. But, what would happen if they all decided to do the same? Would you be happy having your whole sex life documented for the whole world to see?
For instance I knew to the second when the lady who has gone public about our past relationship broke up with her boyfriend, whether she wanted me to or not, as her profile went from ‘in a relationship’ to ’single’. TechDigest have an interesting post on this issue, which touches upon the other side of the coin by asking when do you change your profile to saying that you are in a ‘relationship’, and whether or not you should you get the other party’s approval first!
I think I need Dan and Jennifer’s help to deal with my Social Networking relationship issues!
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Comment by Dan and Jennifer on 13 July 2007:
Wow, love it Everton!
Seriously, as Jennifer likes to say, it’s all OK! We don’t have to accept a friend invite from someone we don’t want as a friend. The passive aggressive approach works wonders in these instances where you don’t want to say “no” per-se since it’s an awkward situation.
And I think it’s maybe kind of cool that you can see when a previously lady friend becomes available… maybe she changes that setting as a hint for the guys to make a move…
All of this extra visibility and transparency will maybe help us take ourselves a little less seriously, and be a little more open with others… definitely a good thing.
It’s a wonderful time to be alive, isn’t it?
Have an awesome day!
Dan
Comment by Everton on 13 July 2007:
I have to admit it has been hard to not send her a little message
Comment by jez on 13 July 2007:
The hours I have spent on that bloody site are never gonna be calculated.. I will be sooo embarrased! One good tip for adding friends, is to grant them access and then quietly a couple of weeks later, remove them! If they are only adding to gain a higher count, then they probably wont notice!
I think FB needs some options. I.E. when I add someone I know online, then give me the option of only allowing that person to see certain items on the wall. Same with Family. Same with other choices that you make..
I do like FB, and I believe it would be simple for the FB Dev team to allow you to differentiate your Personal A / personal B and Business C contacts..
Just my $0.02 worth
Comment by 3gp on 13 July 2007:
Everton it is interesting post. But i think if people have issue that they want to keep secert than i think keep it to themselves no need to post or state any issue on social media sites.
Comment by horisly on 13 July 2007:
ok, i will try that.
Comment by Angie on 13 July 2007:
I’m still watching Facebook from afar. My social networking skills are indeed hampered by my unwillingness to put too much personal info out on the net.