Facebook Application and Content Creation Privacy

While Take Control of your Facebook Security & Privacy Settings (part 1 of this series) provided an overview of Application Privacy, this is a deeper dive and explains how Built-in Apps control some basic functions and default security of Facebook. This is the third in a series, the previous being Facebook Privacy using Friend Lists.

Finding and Setting your Application Settings

1. Hover over Settings (top right of screen)
2. Click Applicaon Settings
3. From the "Show" drop-down (top-right) select "Authorized"

Application settings have to be set for EACH ONE – so it’s better to have fewer than more! For each application, you can "Edit Settings", see its "Profile" (the Facebook page describing the application), or delete it using the "X".

It will take three clicks (“X”, “Remove”, “Okay”) to remove each application, so carefully consider next time you’re offered to add a new application.

Built-in Applications:

• Events
• Gifts
• Groups
• Links
• Notes (should set “new note” defaults)
• Photos (does NOT seem to set “new album” defaults)
• Video (does NOT seem to set “new album” defaults)

Note: there is NO control for (Fan) Pages!

Most Application Settings have three tabs:

• Profile Tab: Checkboxes if the app should be shown on your personal Wall/Info page as a “Box”, and/or if it should be shown as a “Tab”. There’s also Privacy settings that have been described previously in this series.
• Bookmark Tab: Checkbox. Not important to security/privacy.
• Additional Permissions Tab: Items specific to that Application. Most also have a checkbox for “Publish to streams” which means the application can publish to the “wall of a user or a Facebook Page, group, or event connected to the user.” This is similar to “Publish recent activity (one line stories) to my wall” option. You’ll want to carefully consider what applications you allow to create posts for you. Other applications have options on which events (not a formal Event, but specific activities) that should trigger an email to you.

Controlling Privacy when Creating Content
Creating content in each built-in Application is discussed below:

Events – Creating:
Step 1, Privacy:

• Open: “Anyone can see this Event and its content. Anyone can RSVP or invite others to this Event.”
• Closed: “Anyone can see this Event, but its content is only shown to guests. People will need to be invited or request invitations to RSVP.”
• Secret: “Only people who are invited can see this Event and its content. People will need to be invited to RSVP.”

Step 2, Event Options:

• Options on if there’s a wall, what content can be posted, if only admins can post, and control over invites and visibility.

Note: if you create them from your “What’s on your mind?” via Attach: Event, you don’t have the same privacy control.

Gifts - Giving:
Part 4. Method of Delivery:

• Public: “People will see your gift and message. The gift will go in the recipient's gift box and the wall.”
• Private: “People will see the gift but only the recipient will see your name and message. The gift will go in the recipient's gift box but not the wall.”

(Fan) Pages – Creating:
Outside the scope of this article.

Groups – Creating:
Outside the scope of this article.

Links – Creating:
There’s no way to adjust the Privacy of an individual Link as you create it, nor afterward.

Note: You don’t have to create a Link from your “What’s on your mind?” via Attach: Link. Facebook will automatically recognize the URL and create the Attach:Link. You can click the right-side “X” to delete the Attach:Link and while the URL will remain, this update will be simply a status update.

Notes – Creating:
Note Privacy: set the privacy different from the default if you choose.

Photo – Creating a new Album:

Privacy: set the privacy. The default seems to be “Everyone” – this is not changed by the Photo Application settings.

Photo’s created from the “What’s on your mind?” via Attach: Photo end up in different Albums according to how they were created. “Upload a Photo” places it in “Wall Photos” and privacy can not be set at that time (you may have previously set, and can subsequently set privacy). “Take a photo” places it in “Webcam Photos” (you may have previously set, and can subsequently set privacy). “Create an Album” allows privacy settings as usual.

Photo’s created via a Mobile upload go an album called “Mobile Uploads” (you may have previously set, and can subsequently set privacy).

Warning: Like all Facebook Albums, “Wall Photos”, “Webcam Photos”, and “Mobile Uploads” are all restricted to 100 photos. When this limit is reached, a new album with the SAME name is created and its Privacy is defaulted to Everyone. This will not be obvious unless you check. For Mobile upload photos this can be problematic since you are presumably away from your computer, you may not get to (or forget to) change their Privacy for some time.

Videos – Creating:
Privacy: set the privacy. The default seems to be “Everyone” – this is not changed by the Video Application settings.

Video’s created from the “What’s on your mind?” via Attach:Video default to Everyone.

Warning: Mobile upload videos default to Everyone, and since you are presumably away from your computer, you may not get to (or forget to) change their Privacy for some time.

Facebook Privacy using Friend Lists

While Facebook’s Privacy settings are a powerful method of controlling who sees what kind of information about you, unless you create and maintain Friend Lists, you are effectively limited to all Friends seeing everything.

Friend Lists
The first step in creating and using Friend Lists to think about how what information you might not want all your friends to see, and how you might want to group your friends. Some examples:

• Create a list of Work Friends and limit Work Photos and Videos to just them
• Create a list of Work Friends and exclude them from Photos (and Videos) Tagged of You – no need for you boss to see you buddy’s picture of you and him partying
• Create a list of Relatives and limit your Current Address and Home Phone to just them

As discussed in Take Control of your Facebook Security & Privacy Settings, answering "Who can see this?" can be handled different ways. You can think about this is two basic ways:

• Allowing Friends or Lists of Friends to see something
• Excluding Friends or Lists of Friends from seeing something

To allow Lists of Friends, the “Some Friend” method must be used BUT it is not available for all information types. The “Except these People” method is available in all cases. So, a mixture is probably the best with an emphasis on exclusion.

Examples:

• Set “Saturday Night Party Pix” Album to Some-Friends: “Party People List”
• Set “Sick Day Concert Pix” Album to Except: “Work List”
• Set “Kids Photos” Album to Except: “List of friends I don’t know that well”
• Set “Dick and Jane Drunk” Video to Some-Friends: Dick, Jane

Friends can be placed into almost any number of Lists, but Lists can’t contain Lists.

There are two ways to assign friends:

1. By Edit List which presents scrolling columns of all Friends and (Fan) Pages that you can easily select from. The scrolling click-to-select method is fast but the inclusion of (Fan) Pages may really much up the list.
2. From the Friends List which presents a paged list of just Friends that you can easily see how many (and which with a click) Lists they belong to. In this way it’s easier to add a Friend to multiple Lists, and there are no (Fan) Pages, but navigation is not as fast, and it’s also not easy to “see” the whole of who’s in the List.

There is no known benefit to making Lists of (Fan) Pages.

To get started, first create at least one Friend List:

1. Click Friends (top menu)
2. Click Friends (left menu, under “Lists”)
3. Click Create New List (top left button)
4. Type in the new List name (top field)
5. It’s best to wait, but you could select Friends you’d like to add to the List
6. Click Create List

To assign Friends to a List, follow these steps for the ways described above:

1. From the Friends page, click a List from the left column, click the Edit List button. Click to select Friends. Note: Selected Friends will be highlighted in blue with a checkmark on the bottom left of their picture.
2. From the Friends page, click Friends from the left column. For each Friend, use the drop-down arrow and box (to the right) to select Lists to place Friends in, or even create a new List.

To utilize these new Lists see Take Control of your Facebook Security & Privacy Settings. You'll have to change the Privacy settings in your account, and on every Photo Album, Note, Video, and Application. The forthcoming article in this series will show you how to set specific defaults so every new item will inherit some type of privacy besides the Facebook default (Everyone, All Networks).

Notes of Assigning Privacy
The “Mobile Uploads” Album needs a work-around to set Privacy:

• When you try to Edit Info it won’t display the Album Name in the field, and when you change the Privacy settings and click “Save Changes” it will give you the error “You must enter an album name. Go back and try again.”
• The work around is to enter the name “Mobile Uploads”, verify Privacy settings, and click “Save Changes” again. It should work.

The “Profile Pictures” Album has no Edit Info and therefore no Privacy settings:

•  All friends can see ALL your Profile Pictures, although you can remove individual photos from this Album. Your current Profile Picture may be shown to strangers in your Facebook Search Listing and Public Search Listing. You can control this by using the controls under Privacy > Search. 

If you use Photo’s “share this album with anyone” link:

•  The privacy settings do NOT apply. ANYONE with that link can see the Photos.

If you use Video’s “Embed this Video” link:

• Privacy settings are applied. “The video will respect your privacy settings from Facebook.”

Videos don’t go into albums:

• Since they can’t inherit Privacy settings from an Album, they will default to “Everyone” plus your Networks. This is especially problematic if you email upload videos. To establish default Privacy settings, you must edit the settings of the Video App (see next Article).

Check out the next article in this series, Facebook Application and Content Creation Privacy

Take Control of your Facebook security & privacy settings: step by step

Revised 2009/10/7.
What Changed?
While this is primarily in response to Facebook's new beta Publisher (their name for how content is shared), it is also good practice to understand and control how your info is shared and used within and external to Facebook. As of 6/24/09 only those who had previously ‘chose to set their profile and status privacy to "Everyone"’ are affected by this new policy and it is unknown yet when it rollout to all others. The “Transition Tool” for the new beta Publisher looks somewhat different than what is presented here but Facebook has stated “we've designed the Transition Tool to respect previous decisions to limit access to information.” So, if you correct it now it will probably stay correct.

What does it mean?
In a nutshell, I believe, anything set to "Everyone" will soon mean the WHOLE WORLD WIDE WEB, so we have to ensure we don't have that setting anywhere, and it's probably a good time to check everything else. Also “Networks” can be counter to your privacy as some can be vary large – although as of 6/2/09 they started phasing out “Regional” Networks (such as “Los Angeles, CA” although my membership still exists as of 10/7/09), so just Work, College and High School networks remain – each has specific criteria for joining.

Privacy Control
Facebook allows you finely control how many aspects of your information or content is shared.  It does this by allowing you to specify "Who can see this?"  "Who" can be anywhere between "No One" and "Everyone" available in the following ways - not all of which are available in all cases (as quoted from Facebook) or are available through the "Customize..." option:

• "Everyone: Anyone, on or off, of Facebook can see it." This is the setting we need to avoid!
• "Friends and (All of My) Networks: People you have confirmed as friends and people in any school or work networks that you've joined can see it."
• All of My Networks: people in any school or work networks that you've joined can see it.
• Some of My Networks: people in selected school or work networks that you've joined can see it.
• None of My Networks: unless they are otherwise friends (and allowed in some way), no people in any school or work networks that you've joined can see it.
• "Friends of Friends: Anyone who is friends with a friend of yours can see it."
• Some Friends: Select individual Friends or Lists can see it.
• "Only Friends: Only people you have confirmed as friends can see it."
• Only Me: Yup, only you can see it.
• No one: Not sure how this is different from "Only Me".
• Except These People: No selection of friend or friend list can see it.

In almost all cases, I would suggest selecting either “Only Friends” or “Friends of Friends”.  You may consider a more complex control by using the ”Customize...” option and then narrowly allowing access.

Profile Privacy Settings

1. Hover over Settings (top right of screen)
2. Click Privacy Settings
3. Click Profile
4. Basic tab (default)

For each item, look at the brief description shown when you click on the “[?]” to the right of each item, then decide who can see this by selecting from the availble options. Personally, I have all mine set to just "Friends".

Click Save Changes (bottom, don't forget!)

1. Click Contact Information tab

For each item decide who can see this by selecting from the availble options. Personally, I have all mine set to just "Friends" except for Email address which I have set to "Only Me"

Click Save Changes (bottom, don't forget!)

Photo Album Privacy Settings

1. Hover over Settings (top right of screen)
2. Click Privacy Settings
3. Click Profile
4. Basic tab (default)
5. Click Edit Photo Album Privacy Settings (middle, under "Photos Tagged of You")

Review each album and decide who can see this by selecting from the availble options. Pay attention to "Wall Photos" and "Mobile Uploads" which are created automatically.

Click Save Changes (bottom, don't forget!)

Search Privacy Settings

1. Hover over Settings (top right of screen)
2. Click Privacy Settings
3. Click Search

Review each item and decide who can see this by selecting from the availble options.  Here's some additional guidance on what these items mean:

• Search Visibility (for Facebook users): this is your own choice: be found, or hidden?
• Search Result Content: Select the items you'd like anyone who isn't a Friend to see if they find you in a search.  Consider deselecting "Pages I am a fan of" - are you a fan of any pages you don't want to be public?
• Public Search Listing: for outside of Facebook, meaning the whole Web.  The resulting page will look as specified under "Search Result Content":

Note: At the end of "Create a public search listing for me and submit it for search engine indexing" open the "see preview" link in another browser to see what this looks like.

Click Save Changes (bottom, don't forget!)

News Feed and Wall Privacy Settings

1. Hover over Settings (top right of screen)
2. Click Privacy Settings
3. Click News Feed and Wall
4. Actions within Facebook tab (default)

Review each item and select those you'd wish to show up in other's News Feeds, your friend's Home Pages, and your Wall. These are your choice.

Click Save Changes (bottom, don't forget!)

1. Click Facebook Ads tab

Review each item and decide who can see this by selecting from the availble options. Here's some additional guidance on what these items mean:

• Allow ads on platform pages to show my information to: Set to "No One". This is an interesting setting as currently it does nothing because "Facebook does not give third party applications or ad networks the right to use your name or picture in ads. If this is allowed in the future, this setting will govern the usage of your information."  Facebook has removed some Advertising networks who were in violation of their policies.  I believe a common example of these were those "(your friend Bob)'s  is 134 - What's your IQ?" (with Bob's picture) ads.

Click Save Changes (right under this setting - there's two "Save Changes" on this page!)

• Show my social actions in Facebook Ads to: Set to "No One". The distinction between these two settings is easily misunderstood: the second ("... Facebook ...") will only show you are a Fan of something that is being advertised.

Click Save Changes (bottom, don't forget!)

Application Privacy Settings

1. Hover over Settings (top right of screen)
2. Click Privacy Settings
3. Click Applications
4. Overview tab (default)

You'll probably want to read this, but good luck with that!

1. Click Settings tab

Review each item and decide who can see this by selecting from the availble options. Here's some additional guidance on what these items mean:

• What Other Users Can See via the Facebook Platform: UNcheck all those, except perhaps (your choice) Profile Picture and Basic Info (click on the "What's this?" link for more info).
• Facebook Connect Applications: UNcheck.  This is an offshoot from Beacon (below) and allows 3rd party sites to share your profile data. More info here.
• Beacon Websites: UNcheck. This nasty little privacy disaster resulted in a class-action lawsuit and will be shut down.

Click Save Changes (bottom, don't forget!)

Application Permisions

1. Hover over Settings (top right of screen)
2. Click Applicaon Settings
3. From the "Show" drop-down select "Authorized"

This shows ALL of your apps I believe. I have over 360!

FOR EACH application, you can "Edit Settings", see it's "Profile", or delete it "X". Typical settings - they vary by appication:

• Profile tab / Box: Control whether this app is "Available" to be or has been “Added” to your Profile to displayed in a “box”.
• Profile tab / Tab: Control whether this app is "Available" to be or has been “Added” to your Profile to displayed in a “tab”.
• Profile tab / Info Section: Control whether this app is "available" to be or has been “added” to your Profile to displayed in the “Info Section”.
• Profile tab / Privacy: defines who can see the Box or Tab. Does NOT matter (I believe) if neither are "Added"
• Bookmark tab / Bookmark …: I believe "Bookmark" is for your own convenience only.
• Additional Permissions tab / Access my data even when I'm not using the application: your choice.
• Additional Permissions tab / Publish recent activity (one line stories) to my wall: your choice.
  

Click Okay (to save)

That was easy, wasn't it!!

See the next article in this series: Facebook Privacy using Friend Lists.

Question & Answer

Q. When is the new beta Publisher in effect?
A. As soon as you see the "lock symbol" to the left of the "Share" button (for the "What's on your mind?" status question)

Q. What will change?
A. Two things: 1) The "Everything" security setting will then mean "Everyone: Anyone, on OR OFF, of Facebook can see it.", and 2) you can change the security setting of your wall post PER ITEM.

Q. Will they change any of our security settings?
A. I don't believe so, BUT, once you see that "lock symbol", double check!