After reading several articles on online privacy this week, I decided to check again my privacy settings on my Facebook account. I have read recently that some people are deleting their FB accounts due to the changes in the online privacy settings. I don’t know exactly what settings has everyone worried, but I decided to check for myself.
Since I knew I had not left my settings at the default, I felt confident that I wasn’t going to find anything that would worry me. I didn’t really find anything glaring, but a few months ago when I had listed my favorite books, movies, etc. I felt like maybe I was targeting myself for advertisers that would want to solicit business from me based upon my likes and dislikes. I’m glad I took it off soon after posting it. I hope that information didn’t get harvested by some organization that could use it against me someday.
I have always made a habit of only adding “friends” that I am personally close to and not just acquaintances. A few exceptions have been students who have graduated or have moved to different schools and wanted to keep in touch. It is probably this category that I wish I had been more selective. I don’t like reading about their friends or seeing pictures that I normally wouldn’t want to see because of people who are on my “friends” list that I wish I could take off, but not offend anyone. I think I have heard that there are ways to hide certain people from your “friends’ list, but I haven’t been able to find that feature on Facebook. If it exists, I would like someone to tell me about it. That is one feature I would like to use.