Control Your Privacy on Facebook
Facebook privacy settings have been a hot topic since Facebook first began, but the launch of Facebook's Graph Search makes understanding and adjusting your settings more imperative than ever. Graph Search lets people and businesses find Facebook users based on the content of their posts, images, locations, and other information that Facebook stores. If Facebook links you to some content (yours or someone else's) that you don't want to be associated with, update your privacy and account settings now.
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1 Click either the Privacy Shortcuts icon (the padlock) and select See More Settings or click the Settings icon (the cog) and select Privacy Settings.
Both of these icons are in the upper-right corner of the Facebook page. Either action will open the Privacy Settings and Tools page.
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2 To limit who can see your Facebook posts, click Who Can See your Future Posts and select Public, Friends, Only Me, Custom, or one of your friend lists.
Changing who can see your posts only applies to future posts. Facebook will not retroactively remove or limit posts that have been shared in the past.
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3 To retroactively change the privacy settings for your existing posts, click the Limit Past Posts link and click Limit Old Posts.
Make sure you read the information about the limitations and ramifications of this option before you decide whether to click the button.
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4 To limit your posts to Facebook, or to open them up to online search engines, click Do You Want Other Search Engines to Link to Your Timeline? and select or deselect the check box.
Note that, if you deselect the checkbox, it might take a little time for the search engines to stop showing links to your timeline in search results.
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5 To control what happens when someone else tags you, click the Timeline and Tagging tab on the left.
Facebook will let you approve others' tags before they go "live" and link back to you.
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6 Click Review Posts Friends Tag You In before They Appear on Your Timeline and select Disable or Enable.
Enabling this feature adds a Timeline Review link to the left side of you Facebook page. With this enabled, you can see any new posts or pictures your friends have tagged you in and then either approve or eliminate that tag.
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7 Customize the settings in the Who Can See Things on My Timeline? section.
Not only can you control whether or not you get tagged in others' photos, you can control who gets to see the pictures you were tagged in — at least on your own Timeline. This is also where you control who can post to your Timeline.
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8 Click Review Tags to Your Own Posts . . . and Enable or Disable it.
If you enabled Timeline Review in Step 6, disabling this feature will keep you from having to approve tags of you in your own posts and images. Since those posts and images are already associated with you, why mess with having to approve tags that associate you with them again?
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9 Click Who Sees Tag Suggestions . . . ?
Facebook can recognize your face in other people's photos and recommend your name as a tag when they're uploaded. The only options for this feature are Friends and No One. If you turned on Timeline Review in Step 6, you would have to approve tags anyway, so leaving this Enabled is simply a timesaver for your friends — and a boon to you if you have a name that's difficult for your friends to spell.
Facebook will not recommend your name as a tag in photos uploaded by people you haven't friended. And those tags are just recommendations, too; your friends might not even use them, and you won't automatically be linked to pictures of people who look like you but aren't (an encouraging thought for identical twins).
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10 Finally, click the Privacy Shortcuts icon (the padlock), select who can see my stuff, and click the Use Activity Log link. Then seek out and cut any ties to Facebook content you don't want to be associated with.
The Activity Log is a reverse-chronological list of everything that has been linked to your Facebook page, including your posts and pictures and likes, tags of you, your comments on other people's Timelines, and posts created on your behalf by the apps you use. For each item, you can choose who sees it on your Timeline. You can also "Unlike" an item here by clicking the pencil icon on the far right.
These changes apply to individual items, not to the settings of applications. To change application settings, select the app from the list in the left-hand navigation and then change the sharing setting(s) at the top of the screen.
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Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
archive
1. (noun) A list of previous blog posts, in chronological order. 2. (verb) To place files or blog posts in a safer place (on DVD or another server) for longer-term or backup storage.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
attribute
Used in an HTML tag to give an instruction to a Web browser. For example, in This link goes to <a href="http://www.google.com">Google</a>, the <a> tag gets an attribute (href) and a value ("http://www.google.com") to go along with the basic tag. In this case, the attribute indicates to the browser that what comes next is a hypertext reference — in this case, a Web page.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
blacklist
An often-centralized list of e-mail addresses, URLs, and IP addresses used by spammers that are then forbidden in any blog post on your blog. With an up-to-date blacklist, a lot of spam is stopped before it becomes a comment.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
block
To stop all contact with a MySpace user. He can’t comment on your blog page or send you any message that you actually receive.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
blog
A combination of the words Web and log. Bloggers (individuals, groups, or businesses) post a chronological log of information. Content is determined entirely by the author(s) of the blog; many are personal journals.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
blog post
An entry in a blog, possibly containing text, images, and other media.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
blogger
The author of a blog.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
blogging policy
Outlines what you’re allowed to post in your blog.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
blogging software
Technology that enables you to blog. Can be either hosted or nonhosted.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
blogroll
A collection of links used or recommended by a blogger.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
cookie
A short piece of computer code, stored on your computer, that enables Web sites to remember certain settings and information the next time you visit that site.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
Dashboard
A kind of control panel in Blogger that shows you the blogs you’ve set up, giving you access posting, using help resources, or even creating another blog.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
definition list
A type of HTML list that gives a term and then its definition and has built-in spacing to lay out those elements properly.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
disk space
Amount of room available on your hard drive.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
domain
A domain is the address, or main URL, that people type in the browser to get to your Web site. The domain name you choose can’t be used by anyone else.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
domain registrar
A service that enables you to register a domain name.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
entry
An single posting in a blog containing text, images, or other media, or any combination of those things.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
Facebook
A social-networking service that enables you to keep in contact with families and friends via the Web.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
Flickr
A Web site that allows you to share, organize, edit, and otherwise manage your photos.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
Friend List
Your virtual online address book in MySpace. You can become someone’s friend by either sending a fellow MySpacer a Friend Request or by being on the receiving end of a Friend Request from another MySpace user.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
hosted services
Manages the data, software, and Web hosting of a blog; the blogger just manages the content.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
HTML
The computer coding used by Web designers to create Web pages.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
hyperlink
A navigation tool that allows a user to go from one Web location to another by clicking. Hyperinks (or just links) are typically underlined.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
hypertext reference
In HTML, the address that a hyperlink connects to when clicked. For example, in This link goes to <a href="http://www.google.com">Google</a>, the hypertext reference (href) is http://www.google.com. Hyperlink references can also jump to new positions on the same page, open a new e-mail message, or begin a file download.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
link
Short for hyperlink, a navigation tool that allows a user to go from one Web location to another by clicking. Links are typically underlined.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
Mom test
A self-test that flags inappropriate blog posts. If you’d let your mom read the post, then it’s probably passed the Mom test. Specifically, don’t blog about topics you think will hurt others; don’t blog about others without their permission, even about topics you consider inconsequential; and don’t identify friends and lovers by name without their permission.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
MySpace
A social-networking service that enables you to keep in contact with families and friends via the Web.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
MySpace profile
Your MySpace identity. It can contain as much or as little information about you as you’d like.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
news aggregation
The ability to aggregate news by using RSS feeds. Having a news aggregator included with your blog package allows your site to pull in information from another blog.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
nonhosted service
Blog software that you set up on your own Web server. It allows you to take on all responsibilities related to maintaining your blog.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
ordered list
Contains items that must be listed in a particular order, such as a list of ranks or preferences. It may also indicate a list of steps for the reader to follow.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
pinging
An automated notification system for search engines and newsreaders, letting those services know that your blog has been updated. A ping occurs when one computer asks another whether it’s there; the second computer confirms its presence.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
post
1. (noun) An entry in a blog containing text, images, other media, or any combination of these. 2. (verb) The act of creating and/or uploading a blog entry.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
private profile
A MySpace profile that’s limited on who can view it, such as only people on your Friend List.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
public domain
The status of publications, processes, and product designs that are free from copyrights and/or patents and are available for anyone's use.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
social network
A service, such as Facebook or MySpace, that enables to keep in touch with people you know — and meet people you don’t know.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
spam
Unsolicited electronic messages sent in bulk that may be commercial, nonsensical, or malicious. In addition to e-mail spam, blog comments and blog forums can be targeted by spammers.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
tag
A relevant keyword associated or assigned to a piece of information, such as an image, a blog entry, or a video clip. Tags are usually chosen informally by the content creator or by the online community; they help give content to nontext media and organize information for ease of searching.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
Trackback
A technology that tracks references to a blog posting that occurs on other blogs. They allow bloggers to link to blog posts on related topics.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
transparent
1. Being honest and truthful on your blog. Also means that you admit mistakes and engage in dialogue with readers who leave comments. Considered proper blogging etiquette. 2. Integration of applications, programs, and media from different sources in such a way that the end user is unaware that the content is not self-contained.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
unordered list
unordered list is a series of bulleted items and is used for lists that don’t require numbering.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
video blog
A blog consisting of video files, or the practice of placing a video file in a blog post.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
video-sharing service
A service, such as YouTube, that enables you to share video with others.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
Web host
The Web server where you software, graphics, and other files live online.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
Web server
Technology that looks at what Web page is requested and then feeds the browser the appropriate file. It does most of the hard work of serving Web pages to visitors coming to your Web site.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
whitelist
A list of preselected users who are allowed to comment on your blog.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
YouTube
A video-sharing service.