Facebook Privacy Settings Hoax – Doing Privacy Settings the Wrong Way

I’m pretty sure many of you have seen this, I saw no less than 2 of my friends posting this and to what I remember, this is not the first time.

Just as with any other acts on Facebook when it comes to hoax – people act out of fear and concern but without knowledge or common sense.

So do allow me to knock some sense into the matter.

Here’s the full text.

Hello to all of you who are on my list of contacts of Facebook. I would like to ask a favor from you. You may not know that Facebook has changed its privacy configuration once again. Thanks to the new “Graphic app”, any person in Facebook anywhere in the world can see our photos, our “likes” and our “comments”. During the next two weeks, I am going to keep this message posted and I ask you to do the following and comment “DONE”. Please help maintain my information private because I only intend to share with you, my friends, not to the whole world. I want to be able to publish photos of my friends and family without strangers being able to see them which is what happens now when you choose “like” or “comment”.
Unfortunately we cannot change this configuration because Facebook has made it like this.

So, please, place your cursor over my photo that appears in this box (without clicking) and a window will open. Now move the cursor to the word “Friends”, again without clicking, and then click on “Settings”. Uncheck “Life Events” and “Comments and Like”. This way my activity with my family and friends will no longer be made public. Now, copy and paste this text on your own wall (do not “share” it!). Once I see it published on your page, I will un-check the same for you. Thanks! 🙂

*NOTE – Just saw a Malay version, this time with “PHOTOS” added to the list of UNCHECK.

What’s The Problem

In doing the above, what happens is that the person who UNCHECK those contents are the people who will be the one not being able to see it anymore.

If you follow the instructions above, you’ll see this.

Now the big problem is everyone else who does it, only follow the part UNCHECK “Life Events” and “Comments and Like”. What they fail to notice is that this setting applies to THEIR own account, not the person who requested it.

So if I ever to do that to my friend’s account, I would not be able to see those areas that I unchecked. In short, any of your friends that followed the instruction will not see your “Life Events” and “Comments and Like” – EVER!

Logically Incorrect

Let’s go with some logic (or common sense) – when you are securing your home, do you apply locks at YOUR home or someone else’s home? Same goes to privacy, you close your curtains, not the neighbors’.

The same applies to your Facebook account.

Now the funny thing is this, the hoax mentioned “PHOTOS” but strangely the UNCHECK instruction does not include the part for photos. What happens is that the user who requested the above, thought that he or she, is now in better condition as friends already followed the instruction.

The truth of course, is otherwise. The only result so far is that friends don’t see the person’s events, likes and comments. The thing that remains unchanged is the person’s privacy for pictures and such because the settings still remain the same.

At this point, their curtains are still open, so to speak.

Doing It Correctly

Basically there’s only ONE way and that is by changing your privacy settings to the way you like.

The first way, is to use the basic or shortcut to privacy settings. It’s located on the upper right side of Facebook’s interface. See that PADLOCK icon?

Refer to the image below, you can choose the viewers for your content.

There’s also the icon of a cogwheel, right side of the padlock icon. That icon is also another way to access Privacy Settings, in fact it’s a more detailed Privacy Setting area, one where you could go into further detail in your customization.

You could even categorize friends into list and publish your updates according to list given. It’s too tedious in my opinion but it looks like that’s the price to pay if you want privacy.

Parting Thoughts

If privacy is an issue to you, don’t use Facebook. If you must use Facebook, please make some effort to tweak your privacy setting.

Oh, and don’t for such hoax. Anything that requires friends or contacts to do something, it’s likely to be hoax. Doing it without knowledge makes you a fool at best.

Take care.

Additional reading regarding this topic is available at Snopes.