melmichigan Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 Please give me the Facebook for dummies version of what I need to know to be sure that an account is set up with maximum privacy protection. I have a family member who is ill and updates will be posted via Facebook. I swore I'd never have a Facebook account, but now I'm having to reconsider. How do I go about this? TIA! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milovany Posted June 7, 2013 Share Posted June 7, 2013 I'm sorry about your family member who's ill, Melissa. :grouphug: For FB, just open an account and then go to Privacy Settings and My Account. Click everything you see and change whatever you can to "Friends only" (and in some cases, hit Custom and choose Only Me). And then ONLY accept friends that you want to interact with, such as this family member. Don't upload any photos or make status updates if you don't want to, just visit the pages of those you are friends with. If you get a lot of action on your "news feed" (where it shows what your friends have been posting), you can click the little arrow next to a post and "hide" people. Then their activity doesn't show up on your feed. You can make sure that your friend's feed isn't hidden (if you don't hide it yourself, it won't be hidden) so you see those posts right away when you log on. Also, click the word "Notifications" and choose "none" (or however it's worded) so that you don't get a ton of emails every time there's some activity in your profile. I use FB solely for the groups (like the one linked above). I have three friends (my sisters and one son), and won't be having anymore (well, unless my dad and mom ever accept my friend request that is :glare: :laugh: ). I join groups that are useful to me -- local FB yard sale type groups, one for homeschooling discussion about the curriculum we use, one that's a spinoff from our social group here, etc. I don't post photos or status updates at all, and rarely go to read the walls of others. That can be the time-suck at the beginning -- finding it interesting to visit so many people's walls and looking up long lost friends. Also, if you like to buy/sell used books and curriculum, come join this homeschool swap group -- it's rockin'! ;) It got its start here at WTM and has a lot of WTM members. HTH! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melmichigan Posted June 7, 2013 Author Share Posted June 7, 2013 Thanks for all the info. I'm hoping this will be a short term thing, I already dislike all the friends requests. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milovany Posted June 7, 2013 Share Posted June 7, 2013 Just make a blanket policy: No friends but the one for whom you joined FB (the ill relative). Deny all others. When you deny their request, they don't get a notice saying so; they just won't see you in their friends list ever. They don't know if you denied or just haven't seen the request. If you feel the need to explain just send a quick message that you're not accepting any friend request so don't take it personally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QueenCat Posted June 7, 2013 Share Posted June 7, 2013 Just make a blanket policy: No friends but the one for whom you joined FB (the ill relative). Deny all others. When you deny their request, they don't get a notice saying so; they just won't see you in their friends list ever. They don't know if you denied or just haven't seen the request. If you feel the need to explain just send a quick message that you're not accepting any friend request so don't take it personally. If you go to the person's page from whom you made a friend request, it will say "Friendship request pending" (I might be off on the exact words). If you've denied it, you will see the option is back to make a friend request. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milovany Posted June 7, 2013 Share Posted June 7, 2013 If you go to the person's page from whom you made a friend request, it will say "Friendship request pending" (I might be off on the exact words). If you've denied it, you will see the option is back to make a friend request. That's true! You're right. The option, then, is to just don't do anything with the friend requests. Ignore them. Then they don't necessarily know if you've seen them or not. I will message people and tell them I'm not accepting any friend requests and to not take my denial personally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melmichigan Posted June 7, 2013 Author Share Posted June 7, 2013 Just make a blanket policy: No friends but the one for whom you joined FB (the ill relative). Deny all others. When you deny their request, they don't get a notice saying so; they just won't see you in their friends list ever. They don't know if you denied or just haven't seen the request. If you feel the need to explain just send a quick message that you're not accepting any friend request so don't take it personally. Thanks! The friends requests are overwhelming. I accepted immediate family for now (not so sure about that), and left everything else. I have already spent more time on this than I would like. I'll try and read all the help sections later to make sure I have my settings correct, I think I followed all the advice you gave above. Any other advice? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happypamama Posted June 7, 2013 Share Posted June 7, 2013 Also, if you're ever wondering what specific people can see, FB has a thing where you can view your page as if you were someone else. You can view it as "general public" (which in my case means you can see very, very little -- my name, one photo, a very small blurb about me, and my college, I think) or as a specific person from your friends list. I keep my friends list heavily filtered, partly for privacy, partly because it makes sense (my sister and SILs, although we're close, and they'll all see the funny things I post that my kids do, don't need to see stuff that's only applicable to my local homeschooling friends, for instance). I'm sorry about your ill family member. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melmichigan Posted June 7, 2013 Author Share Posted June 7, 2013 Also, if you're ever wondering what specific people can see, FB has a thing where you can view your page as if you were someone else. You can view it as "general public" (which in my case means you can see very, very little -- my name, one photo, a very small blurb about me, and my college, I think) or as a specific person from your friends list. I keep my friends list heavily filtered, partly for privacy, partly because it makes sense (my sister and SILs, although we're close, and they'll all see the funny things I post that my kids do, don't need to see stuff that's only applicable to my local homeschooling friends, for instance). I'm sorry about your ill family member. How do you keep them separate? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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