5 Facebook privacy setting changes you need to make

If you want to stay safe on social media like Facebook, you may need to change your privacy and security settings. Here are the main 5 Facebook privacy and security settings you need to change.

 

Recommended Facebook privacy settings

Facebook users need to be aware of who can see what they post and what kind of information about them others have access to. To some extent, social media giant Facebook allows users to control this, and all users should take advantage of this feature. If you want to protect your privacy, we suggest you take a look at your settings and if necessary, adjust a few things.

• Access Settings and select Privacy. Limit who can see your posts and look you up using email/phone number to friends only (or select “Only me”), select “Only me” in the “Who can see your friends list” section, and do not allow search engines to link to your profile. Your privacy settings should look like this:

 

• Go to Timeline and Tagging. These settings regulate who can post on your timeline and tag you in posts/photos. Depending on how private you are, you can select “Only me” in all sections to prevent anyone from posting on your timeline. However, you will likely want to allow your friends to post on your timeline so your settings should look like this:

 

• Go to Apps and websites -> Preferences. Turn off the “Apps, websites and games” feature. This will prevent you from logging into other apps and websites using Facebook, playing games in Facebook Gameroom, and not allow you to interact with and share content from other apps and websites using Facebook social plugins. In short, you will not be sharing information with third-parties who have no business having your info.
• You should opt out of personalized ads. Go to Ads and in Ad settings select “Not allowed” in ads based on your data from partners, “Not allowed” in ads based on your activity on Facebook, and “No one” in ads that include your social actions.
• Lastly, go to Location and turn off your location history. Any kind of location tracking should be turned off, even if Facebook claims you would be missing out on all those great ads about services near you. If you use Facebook apps on your phone, you should prevent the apps from having access to device location.

 

Recommended Facebook security settings

To ensure maximum security for your Facebook account, we recommend that you also adjust some account security settings.

• Turn on two-factor authentication in Security and login settings. With this feature enabled you will be asked to put in a code whenever you login from an unrecognized device. The code can be sent to you by SMS, or you can use apps like Google Authenticator. This feature helps secure your account and makes hacking it that much more difficult.
• In Setting up extra security, turn on the Get alerts about unrecognized logins feature. Facebook will inform you about any logins it does not recognize via email, Facebook or Messenger notification.
• If you have friends you can trust with helping you recover your Facebook account in case you get locked out, turn on the feature. You can choose up to 5 friends to help you.
• You should also regularly review where you are logged in and authorised logins to check for any unusual activity.