If you’re curious about who can see your Facebook posts after everything that’s been going on in the Facebook world, this article from Digital Trends has your answers.
Just Who Saw That Post Anyways? A Guide to Facebook Privacy Settings.
After the Cambridge Analytica scandal and new privacy laws in Europe, Facebook’s privacy settings may not look like they did when you first created an account. And on top of that, Facebook’s privacy settings are divided up into several different locations and paired with a long legal privacy agreement. If you haven’t visited your privacy settings on Facebook, or have no idea even where to find them, it’s probably time for a privacy check-up.
Facebook Privacy 101
Everyone can see your name, your profile photo, and the names of work and school networks you’re part of. Ditto for pages you are a fan of. You can’t tell Facebook you don’t want those publicly listed — so if you are uploading a profile photo, the only privacy option is public. If you are worried about a potential employer finding out about a quirky fetish or unorthodox political leaning, avoid becoming a Facebook fan of such groups. Your gender and current city are also available if you choose to specify them. You can uncheck “Show my sex in my profile” when you edit your profile if you don’t want it listed, and you can leave “Current City” blank.
Facebook Is Equipped with Various Privacy Levels
Facebook boasts a slew of privacy levels pertaining to different content, whether it’s your friends list, status updates, or photos. Users can adjust the privacy settings and limit profile access at any time, allowing greater specificity when choosing who can view selected content.
- Everyone: Grants access to anyone on the Internet.
- Friends: Grants access to only those who are your friend on Facebook.
- Friends of Friends: Grants access to those who are your friend on Facebook, as well as their friends.
- Friends Except: Grants access to all friends except for a specific group or individual users that you choose.
- Specific Friends: Grants access to only the friends you choose, either individually or through friend lists.
- Only Me: Grants access only to you. Helpful if you want the post to show up on your Facebook Memories in a year or if you have to grant an app access to post on your behalf.
How to Keep Individual Posts Private(Ish)
Tailoring the privacy of a Facebook post during publishing hasn’t changed much over the last few years. The built-in audience selector allows users to specifically choose who they share their content with — regardless if the post is a link, photo, life event, check-in, or simple status update – directly within the posting box. Available audiences include friends, groups, and specific individuals, with an additional option for selecting only yourself. The tool remembers the audience you last shared with, retaining the same audience until you change it, but you can also choose the default option for new posts inside the privacy settings.
To use the audience selector, craft your post as you would normally and click the drop-down menu, directly to the left of the blue Post button. Afterward, select the desired audience for the post and click the aforementioned Post button to publish. The “friends except” and “specific friends” options can use friend lists, which we’ll discuss more on the next page.
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