Lately with Facebook, I am seeing a big surge of connections from not only friends from college, but high school and elementary school. And then I have family starting to sign up. And last but not least, I network with past work colleagues. So with all those social circles having access to my profile, I get a bit worried about who gets to see what. I’m sure you don’t want your family or those you work with to see those pictures from that party you went to. Or perhaps you have some friends who like to make some very explicit remarks on your wall. So how can you filter what gets seen by who? That’s a big part of why I love Facebook: they place a large emphasis on Privacy. And one of the latest features that helps you accomplish this is the Friends List.
I think this feature was rolled out near the beginning of 2008, but I hadn’t really used it until recently. It occurred to me that I was posting some things that I wouldn’t want some of my contacts (i.e. work references, certain family members) to see or know about. It would obviously create some awkward moments if my younger nephew read about some drunken antics my friends and I might have gotten into. Or perhaps I might be sharing some intimate photos with family members that I prefer were kept private among us. So that’s the beginning of the concept of the Friends List: You have certain friends or contacts that you know through certain social circles; and within those circles they have certain levels of information and access that you prefer they have. You are essentially grouping and organizing your friends. This post will show you how I accomplish privacy filtering through friends lists.
First, you must organize your friends lists. Let’s keep it simple: group your contacts according to level of privacy. You might be first inclined to group them according to relation like Family, Friends, Work, College, etc. But for the sake of learning the basics of how the privacy filtering works, try to thinking of grouping them according to how much access they’ll have. Let’s keep it simple to two groups for now: Trusted and Restricted. The Trusted group will have members that you allow access and no others. And the Restricted group will obviously have members that are granted no access to your information.
To start a list and add members to it, click on the Friends link at the top of your Facebook profile and you should see something similar to this:
Click for bigger view.
This is through my own profile, so as you can see, I have several lists in place. But please note the ones titled Restricted and Restricted +. These lists contain members that I want to have no access to my photos, movies, notes, etc. I have a plus group because that one is further restricted to see only the barest of information on my profile.
Back to creating a list: at the left, should see the lists you may have or haven’t made. If not, you should still see + Create link. Click on that and you will be able to title a new list and add members to it as you see fit.
Another way to add members to a list is to simply go to any list view and click on the list drop down menu on the right of the member you wish to add:
Also note that you can add members to multiple lists.
So once you’ve created the lists, it’s time to start applying privacy policies on them. The procedure to set privacy access to your profile, photos, wall, etc is practically the same. For this example, go to your Profile Privacy page by clicking on Settings >> Privacy Settings >> Profile.
Your Profile Privacy Settings.
Anytime you see this lock: 
it means that you can adjust its privacy settings. Clicking on the drop down menu adjacent to it shows you these options:
The option we want is “Customize…” but I’ll go over real quick what the others entail:
- Everyone: This one is relatively new. It means everyone on the internet will have access, despite whether they have an account or not, nor if they are your friend.
- My Networks and Friends: This limits the number of people who have access to those in your networks and are your friend. This goes for the similar option People at [Network] and Friends.
- Friends of Friends: All of your friends will have access, and their friends in their networks will as well.
Click on the Customize… option and this pop-up will come into view:
This little screen is pretty self-explanatory. What we’re interested in are the Some Friends option under Who Can See This? and the Except These People option.
These two options are very useful. If you have material that you want only a select few of individuals to see, sort of an “exclusive” group, choose the Some Friends option. For the things that you don’t want certain people to see, click on the Except These People field. You can add any number of individuals and lists to this which you can do by clicking on this icon: 
With those two options in mind, you would use your newly created Trusted list in the Some Friends option. With this set up, now only the members of the Trusted list will have access and no one else. Some ideas in using this would include: Using a “Family” list so that only your family will see your family pictures; Using a “Best Friends” list to share those pictures from that party with and no one else; or a “Work” list to show the work relevant items only to your co-workers.
Those listed in this option will be able to see what you want them to see and no one else.
The Except These People section means that whoever is listed in this field will NOT have access or be able to see your items. Using the Restricted list here means that the members in that list will never be able to see your pictures. I use this option to limit what my co-workers and family can see on my profile and activity. I also have a Don’t Know or “Strangers” list with members that I met exclusively on Facebook or those I just met and don’t necessarily trust that much; I can limit what they can see as well using the Except These People section.
Those listed in this field will not see what you don’t want them to see.
That’s pretty much it! Now if you want to test it out and make sure the privacy settings are correct, there is a “View As” mode. Using this mode, you can see your profile how your friend sees it according to the privacy settings you have applied to them. To do this, click on hover over “Settings” at the top of any page and click “Privacy Settings.” From that page, click the “Profile” link. On this page you can see the prompt, “See how a friend sees your profile:”
Enter the name of the friend and then click on their name when it pops up. You’ll then be seeing your ‘limited’ profile according to how your friend sees it. This is a pretty good way to test your privacy settings. What I also do is create a second dummy Facebook profile and friend it. Then I apply the privacy settings on that “dummy” and view my profile to see if they work. I use an actual different browser to stay logged on both profiles at the same time.
So there you have it! That’s how you can control what your friends and family can see on your Facebook! I hope this was helpful and please feel free to ask me any questions!
Tags: Facebook
