Red Pill Leadership: Wake up and be a better leader

Facebook just introduced new privacy settings to its more than 130 million members today (December 10, 2009). I took a look at the new settings and though I’m still evaluating I find them to be a remarkable improvement over their old privacy system. These steps will help you to better understand Facebook’s new privacy setting.

Facebook Privacy Levels

Facebook has four levels of privacy that you must understand before you change your settings.

Everyone: Everyone means everyone on the internet; not just Facebook.

Friends and Networks: This setting will share with just your friends and to those in the networks in which you belong. So, if you share your Birthdate both Friends and those in the same network can view your birthday (even though you may not be Facebook friends).

Friends of Friends: Imagine that we are Facebook friends with a guy named Joe but we aren’t friends with each other. If you set your Profile Information to this setting it means I can see your Profile Information because we are friends with Joe.

Only Friends: This will make certain that the only people who can view your content are those who you’ve friended on Facebook.

Customized: Facebook now lets you customize security down to the individual user. You can include and exclude. For example you can set your contact information so that only members of your family can see it. You can also block specific people from viewing certain persona information. (do you really you’re your boss to see you tagged in photos of you at that bachelor or bachelorette party??).

Updating Your Privacy Settings

After logging into Facebook click on ‘Settings’ in the upper right corner of the page next to the Search box. On the next page, the second to last option is Privacy. Click ‘Manage’.

Click on the ‘Privacy Information’ link. This page gives you a list of items to configure your privacy settings. You can set the level of privacy (discussed above) to each of these personal information items:

About me: Everything in your ‘About Me’ description in your Facebook profile

Personal Information: Interests, Activities, Favorites

Birthday: Self-explanatory

Religious and Political views: Self-explanatory

Family and Relationships: Family Members, Relationship Status, Interested In, and Looking For

Education and Work: Schools, Colleges and Workplaces

Photo Albums: You can set security for all of your albums individually

Posts by Me: This is everything that would get posted to your wall such as Status Updates, Links, Notes, Photos, and Videos.

Allow friends to post on my Wall:

Posts by Friends:  Controls who can see posts by your friends on your profile

Comments on Posts: Controls who can comment on posts you create

After finishing the ‘Profile Information’ Facebook privacy settings click the ‘Back to Privacy’ button. Click ‘Contact Information’. You can modify the Facebook privacy settings for each ‘Contact Information’ category.

Privacy for Every Status Update

 Now you can control the privacy of your status updates. Simple type in your new status and click the lock icon under the status update area. Select the appropriate audience for your status update and click ‘Share’.

Though Facebook would like you to share everything with everyone, it is now under your control. I personally like Facebook’s new privacy settings. Though there is potential to share much more if you’re not careful, you definitely have more control than ever before.