Microsoft send out at least 54 emails a day about news, announcement of new features nobody asked for and a shitload of agreements you have to remember to sign by a certain date, even though you already have. But the one I received today had my jaw drop to the floor.
Does Facebook really ruin democracy? Yes, it does. And in this blog posting I will tell you, and provide documentation on, why that is. Did you know Brexit most likely happened because of fake news on Facebook?
In the past few days there have been numerous postings and articles in presumptive serious magazines and tech blogs that claim if you are posting a photo of what you looked like ten years ago, and what you look like today, it will make you vulnerable when it comes to what Facebook knows about you. It’s not any more dangerous than what Facebook already knows about you. And they know a LOT! Let me show you exactly how much.
I’m sure you’ve received them too. Friend requests from sexy bikini clad women who suddenly wants to be your friend. Or maybe you’ve received a friend request from a smiling man from Nigeria, who desperately wants to be your friend, so that you can help him with some money transfers?
UPDATE 08.12.2018: This no longer works. There’s another way you have to do this now. I will create a blog posting about that soon.
Since my last posting about what Nametest (and such quizzes and tests) do to the profile of your friends, I’ve gotten a lot of private messages asking me how to block them.
First I have to point out something: The data that the company behind nametests, namely Social Sweethearts (now that’s an ironic name for ya), already has collected about you and your friends is not gonna be affected by this move. They already have it. However, this can prevent them for gathering even more data about you in the future (you do add more and more data as time goes by).
I’m sure you have some “friends” who insists on still taking these tests, even if you have pointed out that they are helping to violate privacy of their Facebook contacts (probably defending themselves with “there will always be threats and viruses, and this is just for fun,” not realising the reason there will always be threats and viruses are because of people like them).
These are good steps to take to prevent your data from being snapped up by unwanted third parties.. These tips can also be used for any other app your friends use that you don’t feel comfortable with. So I hope this is useful for you.
Note: These tricks won’t stop you from seeing that your friends post the annoying results of their annoying tests. If you don’t want to see those postings at all you either have to unfriend those friends, or install FB Purity. The latter makes it possible for you to clean up your news feed to look just like you want it to.
These instructions are done in a web browser on a computer. The menus will be different in the mobile app, but the principle will be the same.
Note that all public data you have on Facebook profile will still be available to these apps. You can however change it so that only you can see the information about your self such as gender, relationship status and so on:
You can go through all your information in this way, and control exactly who should be able to see what. If you set Only me your friend’s apps won’t be able to go through it.
If you don’t want the apps to read your friends list, you can prevent that in the following way:
Now your friends list should be safe from those pesky apps.
If you want to block these apps completely, you have another step you can take. You can go to the section called Apps, Websites and Plug-ins:
If you click Edit, you are given the choice of turning off access for all services like this. Be warned, however, that the following will happen:
What if you’ve already used Nametests and thereby given it access to your own profile, as well as those for your friends. How do you remove it?
So it’s up to you how well you want to protect yourself. The best way is to inform your friends what apps like Nametests do (and there’s so much we don’t know what Nametests do with your data) that they shouldn’t use them. If they refuse, you can always unfriend them, but that could create social awkward situations…
Did you find this useful? Leave a comment in the or send me a message. And I appreciate it if you share this posting.
Aren’t there times when you where you are itching to post a scatching status posting about something or someone? But you can’t do it, because you don’t want any persons involved to read your posting.
Luckily Facebook has a function not many people know about that lets you do just that: Post something and then tell what people should not be allowed to read neither the posting itself, or any likes or comments either.
This is how you do it:
Write your posting:
To the left of the Post button you have a pulldown menu:
Click on this button:
Go to Friends except… and click on it. This screen pops up (I have anonymized people in my list, but you will see your friends’ profile photos, names and workplace):
In the top of my list I have the two last persons I blocked from seeing a posting. You can see that they are active, because of the red circle behind their names. If I do want them to see this posting, I simply click on the red icon, so that it becomes white:
Now the person in the top of the list will not be included in this exception list.
To choose a person that should not see this new posting, you simply search for their name in the search field:
Type as many letters as needed in the search field until you see the name of the person listed. Then simply click on the circle to the right of their name:
After clicking on it, it will turn red:
If there are other people you want to hide this posting from, simply search for them as well and click on the circle icon behind their names.
When you have found all the names you simply click on the button Save Changes.
However, it can be a good idea to review the list of people you want to block. To do so, click on the little x to the right inside the search field:
Now you can see the list of all the people you have blocked for this posting:
As you can see I have two people whom I want to block from seeing this posting. The person I removed from the block list is still listed among the others that I’ve chosen, but as we can see the icon behind the name is white, which means he won’t be blocked.
Click Save Changes. You will now return to this screen:
As you can see on the pulldown button, this posting will now be shown to all friends, except the ones you just chose. You can even see the names of people it should be hidden for it you click on the pulldown arrow in the button:
If you change this to Public or Friends, the people you just picked will still see the posting, like everybody else. You choice has to stay on Friends except…
However, the next time you choose Friends except…, all the people you just added to this list will still be listed here. So if you want any of them to see the posting the next time you choose Friends except…, you have to actively remove them from the list.
So that’s how you hide a posting from selected individuals. Neat, eh?
