Facebook Talk

Facebook recently announced that a new feature is in the works, which will allow you to group your friends into different categories (ie, Friends, Family, Drunken Hookups) so that you can control who exactly sees what on your profile. But knowing Facebook, this will take forever to actually become a functioning feature on the site and in the mean time, there are still concerns over how to stop people from seeing things you want to keep private. Well, let me see if I can’t help.

We all know how Google can now show up some limited Facebook info in their search results, which leads some people to worry that one day their private data might start to show up as well. While that hasn’t happened yet, the thought of a potential employer Googling your name and then seeing your profile isn’t the most calming idea to me. Sure, you might have thought it was a good idea to upload those photos of yourself from last week’s Toga Party, but you’ll probably start to regret it as the director of Human Resources at Company X looks through them and then reads your notes posted the next afternoon about the Walk of Shame you just embarked upon.

Plus there’s the option that your potential employer is already a Facebook member and looks you up using Facebook’s own search feature. But fear not, fair citizens, for you can hide all that precious and incriminating data with just a few keystrokes.

First, click the “privacy” link at the top of Facebook’s page, then “Edit Settings” next to the Search option, before making sure you have everything set up correctly. If you’re using Facebook primarily as a social site to keep up with your friends (which is what most people do), then there is no need to let Google show you up in their search. Uncheck “Allow my public search listing…”, which is the highlighted box in the picture below.

Of course, if you’re super paranoid about being rooted out on Facebook, you can completely hide yourself from everybody on Facebook who isn’t your friend. But this obviously makes it harder for new friends to find you, but if you don’t mind finding all your Real Life friends on Facebook, then this might be a good option for you. To do this, simply change the “Which Facebook users can find me in search” option from “Everybody” to “Only my friends.”

But let’s say that you don’t want that new hot chick you just added as a friend to see how nerdy you are by looking at your favorite movies and TV shows. Well, then, don’t let her! You can set up a “Limited Profile,” which does just what the name implies. Again, you can edit this setting from the main Privacy page and after you tweak it, anybody you put in this category will only be able to see the certain sections of your profile that you want them seeing.

Another setting you might not know about is the ability to make sure your professors aren’t looking at your profile. That’s right, that evil Math professor whom you hate might very well be on Facebook reading all the mean things you’re saying about him on yours and other people’s walls. So let’s cut him out of the picture!

Go back to the Privacy page and this time edit the settings next to the “Profile” section. Here, you’ll see a vast array of crap you and tweak and fiddle with. But about half-way down the page, you’ll see some check boxes that you can mess with that will make sure Professor Pain-In-The-Ass won’t ever be able to see your profile again.

In fact, students at the University of Oxford found out about this setting the hard way, as university officials began going through people’s photos and looking for rule violations this past summer. Let’s make sure you don’t get any fines or even worse, kicked out of the dorms thanks to your Facebook profile!

Obviously, there are plenty more settings here on this page and you should look at all of them and make sure you have them set to exactly what you want. Who do you want seeing your phone number? E-mail addresses? Current Address? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Don’t wait to limit what personal information about you is out there until something happens that makes you regret it!