So how do you set up Facebook Privacy controls?
- Sharing on Facebook
Here, your child can control who can see what they post on a day-to-day basis, such as status updates (what they’re doing now), photos and videos. It also includes settings for things they share about themselves (e.g. birthday and contact information) and content that others share about them (e.g. comments on their posts and photos/videos they’ve been tagged in). Facebook recommends the kind of basic information users share by default, but your child can go through each individual setting and decide who can see particular information by clicking on ‘Customise settings’ in the ‘Sharing on Facebook’ section (see number 1 on the screenshot at the beginning of this tutorial). ‘Customise settings’ enables your child to decide who they are happy seeing and commenting on things they share, things on their Wall (where they and their friends post and share) and things they’re tagged in, such as ‘Mobile phone’, ‘Address’, ‘Birthday’, ‘Places I check in to’ and ‘Photos and videos I’m tagged in’. It also includes ‘Places I check in to’ and ‘Include me in ‘People Here Now’ after I check in’ options, which are related to Facebook’s new location service, Places. - Basic Directory Information
Certain information on Facebook is visible to everyone so that people can find and connect with other users. This includes your child’s name, profile picture, gender and networks. They cannot customise the settings for this information but they can view and change the other basic settings, such as ‘See my current city and hometown’ and ‘See my interests and other Pages’. To do this, they should go to Account/Privacy Settings and click on ‘View settings’ in the ‘Basic Directory Information’ at the top of the page (see number 2 on the screenshot at the beginning of this tutorial). They can then go through each individual setting and decide who should see particular information. Please note that in some of the basic settings, there is an additional ‘Customize’ option in the drop-down menu in the ‘Basic Directory Information’ to enable users to hide content from individuals even if they are on their friends list. - Applications and websites
This section controls what information is shared with applications, games and websites, including search engines. Your child can view their applications, remove any they don’t want to use or turn off the platform completely. By clicking on ‘Edit your settings’ (see number 3 on the screenshot at the beginning of this tutorial), your child can choose things like ‘who can see their recent games and application activity’ here. - Block Lists
‘Block Lists’ lets your child block certain people from interacting with them or seeing their information on Facebook, ignore application and event invitations from certain people, and see a list of the applications they have blocked. They should click on ‘Edit your lists’ underneath ‘Block Lists’ to access these settings (see number 4 on the screenshot at the beginning of this tutorial).
