How To Use Facebook Lists to Control Your Privacy
by Daniel Snyder on Nov 22, 2010 • 7:07 pm 24 CommentsThis post will teach you how to use facebook lists to control your privacy! I’ve been using facebook for years, primarily to connect with friends and family, but I recently decided to expand my facebook account to include online friends, and work colleagues and acquaintances. The reason I’d in the past hesitated on doing this is because I didn’t feel comfortable with anyone and everyone I added as a facebook friend being able to see all my content. I’d never considered using facebook lists, and wasn’t aware of the control one can have with facebook’s privacy options. This post gives simple instructions on how to create lists of friends (such as acquaintances, work colleagues, online friends etc.) and give them specific permissions to see or NOT see parts of your profile. Perhaps you want to have a list for all the ‘friends’ you work with, but you’re not ready for them to see all your photos, or ready for them to see your status updates. No problem! With facebook lists and their customizable privacy options you can do this.
Here’s how to set it up!
How To Use Facebook Lists to give certain friends special permissions or restrictions!
Step 1. Click on account and Edit Friends.
Step 2. We’re going to click create a list. And then give that list a name and start picking people we want to be on that list. In this example I create a list called “Work Acquaintances“.
Once you’ve created the list and added the ‘friends’ you want on that list, you can now set special permissions for that list in your privacy controls.
Step 3. Head up to account and then privacy settings.
Step 4. You must be using custom settings for your privacy, and then you will click on customize settings. (Bottom left)
Step 5. After clicking on ‘customize settings‘ you can see all the options you have based on the information that you share. For instance you can click on ‘Interested and Looking For’ and set those settings very specifically. You can determine who to make it visible to, and also who to individually hide it from. Or you can add an entire list to the hide section. Just type the first couple letters of your list and it will come up.
You have now effectively hidden your ‘interested and looking for‘ information from your work acquaintances. This can be applied in the same way to any list, any friends, anything you might share! Was this information helpful? Are you using facebook lists already? Are you going to make modifications to your facebook privacy settings now? Join the conversation and let others know how this works out for you with comments on this dofollow blog! If you’ve just now learned How To Use Facebook Lists to control your privacy tell us! If you like this post, then become our fan on facebook!
24 comments
Steve from ZolexPC says:
Nov 22, 2010
Thanks for sharing this. I am sharing this with my Facebook Fans. Easy to follow and easy to understand.
Daniel Snyder says:
Nov 22, 2010
Thanks Steve! Awesome!
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Nov 22, 2010
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Patricia@lavenderuses says:
Nov 22, 2010
Hi Daniel
Really informative post. Thanks so much for sharing in such detail and especially with the screen shots cos then I can understand what you are on about.
Will bookmark this post as need to check I am doing things right. Have not used Facebook much but lots of my biz buddies are friending me now so want to learn to use it properly.
Patricia Perth Australia
Daniel Snyder says:
Nov 22, 2010
Thanks Patricia! Hope it helps. Feel free to share the info with all your facebook friends. 🙂
Thiru says:
Nov 22, 2010
Hi dani..
Have been using facebook for a long day, but dint know this. Thanks for the post dude.
Sophie@top 10 antivirus says:
Nov 23, 2010
Thank u for the screenshot of this facebook features, never realized it.
Regards,
Soph.
SERPD says:
Nov 23, 2010
How To Use Facebook Lists to Control Your Privacy…
This post will teach you how to use facebook lists to control your privacy! I’ve been using facebook for years, primarily to connect with friends and family, but I recently decided to expand my fac……
A. Tatum says:
Nov 23, 2010
I’m surprised at how many people don’t protect there profile, or how they just friend anyone.
Daniel Snyder says:
Nov 23, 2010
I agree, I have a number of friends who leave their profiles wide open for the world to see, photos, info and all. I’ve told them, but they don’t care… strange!
Karen says:
Nov 23, 2010
Now this is extremely useful, I had no idea about using my lists for my privacy settings, I’ve just followed your advice and it works like a charm 😉
Daniel Snyder says:
Nov 23, 2010
Cool! Thanks Karen, glad I could offer some good advice. 🙂
Software Download says:
Nov 23, 2010
Hi, In recent study there are around 1 million facebook users are hacked, that means one in every hundred…Most of the people doesn’t know how to protect there profile the above post is really useful….
Thanks for sharing
—
Naresh
Sean Sabourin says:
Nov 23, 2010
A well written and informative post. Thanks for sharing. I am going to put it into action. Thanks Dan.
Daniel Snyder says:
Nov 23, 2010
Cool! Thanks Sean. I use this to keep my profile relatively private for ‘web friends & acquaintances’ … those people don’t have permission to see any of my contact information (other than email), and my photos & videos stay private as well.
Daniel Snyder says:
Nov 24, 2010
You’re welcome, glad this post provided some valuable insight for you!
Ishan says:
Nov 28, 2010
Funny how people use techniques like this to get traffic! No offense but”Kaitrina Kaif” is a famous India actress and above person has used her name to promote the blog and get a “keyword” link!
Ha ha!
Daniel Snyder says:
Nov 28, 2010
Thanks for the tip-off! Now and then comments like this slip through the spam filter. Going to delete it now!
A Big THANK YOU From NewBizBlogger! - NewBizBlogger says:
Nov 24, 2010
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Ishan says:
Nov 28, 2010
Well, I have nicely organized lists but I use them mostly to hide from chat(I am in college and guess what, as soon as someone sees me online, they start chatting! This is irrtating). I did not know about the advanced privacy features! Thanks for bringing these to attention.
Daniel Snyder says:
Nov 28, 2010
Ishan, I always have my settings to appear ‘offline’, I can’t be bothered with chat 99% of the time, I am too busy with other things to stop and chat… using lists for that purpose is a good idea since there may be certain individuals who I would like to chat with! Thanks for your comment.
Caleb says:
Dec 3, 2010
Just last night I was reading The Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick where he mentions this ability as pivotal in Facebook’s history, yet I couldn’t figure out the filtering mechanism beyond the basic who can see what options..
..so thanks for this and I’ll do what I can to spread this one around 😉
Adam says:
Feb 6, 2011
Great post. Short and straight to the point. I’ve been wondering if there something like this… Thanks. 😉
Daniel Snyder says:
Feb 7, 2011
Thanks Adam, hope it worked well for you and you put it to use! Have a great day man.