All I Want for Christmas...My Security Settings on Facebook

by Meagan Dorsch

"How much of this is public?"

We've heard this question from legislators and legislative staff when talking about setting up a Facebook or other social media site. Up until last week, my general answer for Facebook had been the same, "As much as you want it to be."

But now, I have to take into consideration the world's largest social media site's new security changes, which are making more of your information on Facebook public. Last week, Facebook announced it was giving more control to users by allowing us to choose who gets to see our profile, pictures and even posts. This is nothing new, so I was confused by the announcement. It wasn't until I was searching the web that I realized what had happened. Facebook essentially reset all of your privacy settings to "everyone," meaning more than your "friends" can see your page. If you don't like this, you need to go into your account and place more restrictive settings on your page if you want to lock down the content. 

But even if you re-adjust your privacy setting, Facebook has made your profile picture, city, networks, fan pages and friends available for everyone to see. Facebook claims this move will make it easier for people to find you, especially if you have a common name. But what if you don’t want these things made public? Facebook's answer: don't put it on your profile page.

This move to make more of your personal information private has been highly criticized by several trade journalists. PC World claims this information

...may be accessed by everyone on the Internet (including people not logged into Facebook), is subject to indexing by third party search engines, may be associated with you outside of Facebook (such as when you visit other sites on the internet), and may be imported and exported by us and others without privacy limitations.

Facebook disputes this fact, but to be safe, you can opt-out of this setting. If you don't, Facebook will automatically opt you in.

1. Go to "settings" on your profile page.
2. Click on "privacy settings"
3. Hit the "search" option.
4. Un-click the "public search results" option.

Now let's talk about one security feature that I have come to enjoy. When you update your status, pictures or video, you can now decided who gets to see it. You can select between everyone, just friends and a few other settings. Note that the ability to control posts does not exist if you have created a fan page, like NCSL Facebook fan page.

But that is the nature of a fan page: it's public. What I don't know is how these new security features will affect political pages. That is why I am writing this blog. I assume (I know, I know) that since political pages have more security controls (similar to a personal profile page) than fan pages, you would need to go in and adjust the security settings in case you didn't want everything you post to be public.

Which brings me full circle. From now on, when a lawmaker or staff asks me how much of what they post is public, I'll have to tell them, "More than you know, friend, unless you're careful."