5 ways to maintain privacy in Facebook’s open world
Since that time it has become the love of my life and the plague of my life, enabling me to regularly interact and keep current with old friends as well as become better acquainted with people I first met online. It has also provided me with opportunities to share my writing to a wider audience, […]
Since that time it has become the love of my life and the plague of my life, enabling me to regularly interact and keep current with old friends as well as become better acquainted with people I first met online. It has also provided me with opportunities to share my writing to a wider audience, including, because of the notes I was writing on Facebook, an invitation to write this weekly column. Facebook is also my favourite way to keep on top of the latest news. During the World Cup when there was no electricity to watch the matches, friends posted witty play-by-play commentary on the game. That said, social networking also has its dangers.
It is addictive and time-wasting. Although interacting with friends, reading articles, looking at photos, and watching videos others have posted is good in small doses, the time one spends on Facebook often can be spent more productively in writing, reading, working, or interacting with people in real life.
Facebook is sometimes invasive and overwhelming and gives people you would normally not see very often, constant access to you, sometimes even opening you up to attack by stalkers or 419 operators. With the move from the United States to Nigeria, I noticed different Facebook cultures. In the U.S., most people I know tend to use Facebook to interact with friends or stay in touch with acquaintances. In Nigeria, on the other hand, Facebook seems to be more commonly a way to meet new people, more of a club than an intimate gathering of friends. Both usages have their advantages, but sometimes there are misunderstandings when the two cultures meet. For example, I was taken aback and discomfited when I first moved to Nigeria and new friends I accepted on Facebook went through my list of friends selectively “friending” those whose names or photos they liked. Other times, I have gotten messages from strangers who are hurt or angry that I have not accepted their friend request.
In the past I have accepted friend requests from people I don’t know, but before I accept, I usually do research on them. If we have interacted regularly on other online forums like blogs or email listserves or if we frequently converse on mutual friends’ walls, I feel more comfortable accepting a request. If we have mutual friends, I usually ask them how they know the person trying to friend me. As the number of people on the site has grown, however, I have become more cautious with my usage. I now rarely accept friend requests from people I have not met in person. As my friends in the film industry grew, I realized that often public figures use their Facebook page as a fan page. Just because I have 10 or 15 “friends” in common with someone does not mean my friends can vouch for them. Likewise, I don’t feel duty-bound to accept a friend request from someone I have only met once or twice. When one young man I had met at a film festival began to leave inappropriately intimate comments on my page while simultaneously carrying out a flamboyant Facebook romance with an American woman old enough to be his grandmother, I quickly unfriended him. His online relationship could be perfectly genuine, but his demeanor smelled of 419. Over the four years I have used Facebook, I have developed a set of rules that I use for myself to keep Facebook an enjoyable experience.
1. Accept only those people you know well
This is either in person, through interaction in mutual interest groups, or whom you have researched through mutual friends. I rarely accept friend requests from current bosses, supervisors, or those who are in authority over me, as I like to keep it an informal space.
2. Protect yourself with privacy settings
Facebook gives you the option of sharing your wall posts and photos with everyone, with friends of friends, or with only your friends. I have my privacy settings set to be available only to friends, although I will open up some notes to a larger public or share a photo album with non-friends through emailing them the public link at the bottom of the album. Although I am lazier about internal filters since I try to keep my posts tame, you can also protect each post by grouping your friends and clicking on the padlock beneath your update box to select which groups can view each post.
Another way to protect yourself is to remove your Facebook profile listing from internet search engines like Google. All the same, as Facebook famously often changes their security settings with little warning, it is best to only say things on Facebook you won’t be ashamed of if they are quoted back to you. I was once disconcerted to see a playful status update I had posted about a film shoot taken out of context, embellished, and published in an article on my participation in Kannywood. Journalists shouldn’t quote private Facebook posts without permission, but sometimes they do.
3. “Unfriend” people who make you uncomfortable.
Because I am careful about whom I accept as a friend, I rarely use this option, but I do unfriend people who regularly post offensive or “spammy” things on their walls or mine. I’ve also unfriended people who were abusive to my other friends. Facebook also has a block option.
When you block people, they can no longer see or find you on Facebook, and you cannot see or find them, although if you have exchanged messages, their names (but not photos) will still show up in your inbox. I have used this option even more rarely than the defriend option, but have blocked a few people who were demonstrating obsessive “stalker” tendencies.
4. Be careful about whose messages you respond to.
Facebook enables your basic profile to be viewable by everyone, so it is a good way to get in touch with someone whose email address you don’t know, even if you are not Facebook friends with them. When you do send a Facebook message to someone, however, be sure to include an email address where they can respond to you. I used to respond on Facebook to most messages sent to me, even from people I didn’t know. However, I discovered, the hard way, that once you respond to a message from someone who is not your friend, they have access to parts of your profile that would otherwise be inaccessible to them.
I once responded to a message from an older American man who had known me as a child, but I did not accept his friend request. When I noticed that he started leaving stalker-style messages on my public profile wall and befriending my other friends, I discovered that, although my account is set to the most private setting, because I had responded to his message, he had access to my list of friends and appeared to them as my friend. I ended up blocking him.
5. Set up a public profile if you have an unusually large number of friend requests
Facebook allows users to create a public page, which anyone can “like” to follow their statuses and updates. This is particularly useful for public figures like actors, writers, or teachers who want to interact with their fans or students but still maintain privacy for their friends. You can use the public page to post updates, links, photos, and start discussion groups. I prefer to use my public page for interacting with people I don’t know in person but whose comments and feedback I appreciate.
Although not everyone is as protective of their intimate space on Facebook as I am, I thought it would be useful to share these tips from my experiences on how to more safely use the world’s most popular social networking site. For those of my readers who have tried to friend me on Facebook, forgive me. I welcome your feedback through email or on my public Facebook page and enjoy interaction on those forums, but I reserve my private Facebook account for those I know well.