Facebook’s great for staying in touch, but it’s also a ripe hunting ground for scammers, impersonators, and digital ne’er-do-wells. Fortunately, with a few quick tweaks, you can stop your profile from being the online equivalent of an open front door. Here’s how to give your settings a quick privacy MOT:
🧾 Step 1: Limit Who Sees Your Posts
Go to: Settings & Privacy > Settings > Privacy
- Under ‘Your Activity’, set ‘Who can see your future posts?’ to ‘Friends’.
It keeps your musings, memes, and mild rants away from strangers.
🧹 Step 2: Clean Up Old Content
Still in Privacy Settings:
- Click ‘Limit Past Posts’ to retroactively change old public posts to ‘Friends Only’.
- Turn on ‘Timeline Review’ and ‘Tag Review’ under Profile and Tagging to approve tags before they appear.
🚪 Step 3: Control Who Can Contact You
Go to: How People Find and Contact You
- Set ‘Who can send you friend requests?’ to ‘Friends of friends’ (cut down on spam).
- Set ‘Who can look you up by email or phone?’ to ‘Friends’ or ‘Only me’ – you don’t need randoms finding you with just a phone number.
🔍 Step 4: Opt Out of Search Engine Listings
- Turn off ‘Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile?’
Unless you want your profile showing up next to your plumbing business on Google, probably best to keep this one off.
⚙️ Pro Tip:
Facebook likes to move the goalposts. Schedule a calendar reminder every few months to review your privacy settings – consider it a digital service check.