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Lock Down Your FaceBook Profile in 20 Minutes (Video, UPDATED)

By | May 28, 2010, 10:09am PDT

Summary: Here’s a pair of videos which show you how to lock down your FaceBook profile in 20 minutes or less.

[EDIT May 28, 2010: This article has been updated to reflect FaceBook's latest privacy changes.]

If you haven’t already read my Lockdown or Death for Your FaceBook Profile article, here are two videos which guide you through the process of locking down a typical FaceBook account for increased privacy and user security.

Part 1: Clean Up your Profile and Remove Information

Part 2: Adjust your Privacy Settings (UPDATED)

Be advised in the videos that since this was a new “Demo” account your options may vary and your lock down process may be a little more complicated than what I have demonstrated. In which case, I suggest you look at the Gallery which details the settings you need to look at.

Also Read: Lockdown or Death for your FaceBook Profile: An Advanced User Guide to Social Networking Privacy

Also Read: Contemplating FaceBook Hara-Kiri

Also Read: Dear Facebook friends: I’m sorry, but I had to kill you

Have we missed any key settings or steps here? Talk Back and Let Me Know.

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Facebook, Video, Corporate Communications, Marketing, Jason Perlow

Jason Perlow, Sr. Technology Editor at ZDNet, is a technologist with over two decades of experience integrating large heterogeneous multi-vendor computing environments in Fortune 500 companies.

Disclosure

Jason Perlow

My Full-Time Employer is IBM. I write as a freelancer for ZDNet.

Disclaimer: The postings and opinions on this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

I own no investments or direct financial instruments in the companies I write about.

Biography

Jason Perlow

Jason Perlow, Sr. Technology Editor at ZDNet is a technologist with over two decades of experience with integrating large heterogeneous multi-vendor computing environments in Fortune 500 companies. A long-time computer enthusiast starting the age of 13 with his first Apple ][ personal computer, he began his freelance writing career starting at ZD Sm@rt Reseller in 1996 and has since authored numerous guest columns for ZDNet Enterprise and Ziff-Davis Internet. Jason was previously Senior Technology Editor for Linux Magazine, where he wrote about Open Source issues from 1999 to 2008.

In his spare time, Jason is an avid amateur chef and food writer, where his work reviewing New Jersey restaurants has appeared in The New York Times. He is also the founder of the popular food web site eGullet and blogs about restaurants and cooking at OffTheBroiler.com.

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RE: Lock Down Your FaceBook Profile in 20 Minutes (Video)
JACOBSONR 14th Oct
Good day to confirm this comment I would appreciate T h e b e s t o f Z D N e t d e l i v e r e d your website very nice to everyone Yes, Oracle is the only one with shared-disk architecture, but that is there advantage. It means you can add or remove nodes and the database lives on. In a shared nothing architecture, if you lose a node, you lose the system. I'm sure Oracle appreciates EMC highlighting their advantage.I also desire to signal in your RSS feeds. Thank you as soon as once again and maintain up the great operate Awesome post! Thank you very much || thanks for nice content this is really benefit to me.
View in thread
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OMG, is there no end to this FB security issue? (kidding)
Dietrich T. Schmitz,Your Linux Advocate 9th May 2010
nt
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RE: Lock Down Your FaceBook Profile in 20 Minutes (Video)
Snark Shark 9th May 2010
Waiting for the trolls to show up asking "Jason, why don't you sell your computer and go live in a cave"... 3... 2... 1...

I will say this. Most of what's in this video should be common sense. It shouldn't be NECESSARY to make a video telling people they shouldn't be exposing their political views and their hobbies to anyone who can sleaze their way onto their friends list, or use an API call from a Facebook game to read their profile in detail. But I suppose it needs to be repeated over and over again until people get it.
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RE: Great video for locking down FB!
i2fun@... Updated - 10th May 2010
Although I still use Facebook, I've deleted any applications that weren't necessary (games,etc). What I hate about it, is that they are constantly changing the setup and how you control your security. It sucks that they reset it to their own defaults when they do this. They know that once they have you in for the lock-in, that there is less chance of you wanting to leave FB and also that you are less likely to go back to redo the settings. Once you're connected to all your friends and comfortable.

I like the video and don't understand why anyone wouldn't like it, unless they have a hidden agenda. I just know I'm not going to be hanging around much longer FB, once I get my Buzz working in Gmail the way I like it with all my friends. Then you won't see me hanging around Facebook like Shark Bait!
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RE: Lock Down Your FaceBook Profile in 20 Minutes (Video)
23849759475 10th May 2010
Now you got posts by friends on your wall limited to "Only me" (who can see them). This (also) means (however) that friends cannot post to your wall. THIS is making the whole Facebook "experience" useless. I don't see how setting this option to "Only friends" makes it a little bit more locked-down.
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Contributr
RE: Lock Down Your FaceBook Profile in 20 Minutes (Video)
jperlow 10th May 2010
@23849759475

In the Screen Shots I have it set to "Only my friends", I didn't catch this in the video until after I had uploaded it.
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RE: Lock Down Your FaceBook Profile in 20 Minutes (Video)
Loverock Davidson 10th May 2010
Why bother locking down Facebook when you can just dump Microsoft Windows like you did previously? After all, that was your solution to this whole mess. Since your not using Windows anymore there is no need to lock down Facebook. Hey, I'm just using your logic here.
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RE: Lock Down Your FaceBook Profile in 20 Minutes (Video)
Katherine Warman Kern 10th May 2010
Wow! And I thought I had already locked down my profile? They must have added more optouts since I thought I had done that.

If you want to share how you think your info should or shouldn't be shared by Facebook and others, tell Comradity here: http://www.comradity.com/comradity/how-do-you-feel-about-sharing-your-information.html

We'll be sharing the results with the sponsor of the Internet Privacy bill, Rep. Rick Boucher.

Katherine Warman Kern
@comradity
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RE: Lock Down Your FaceBook Profile in 20 Minutes (Video)
ryanstrassburg 10th May 2010
Now remind again why I would want to propogate my personal information to the rest of the world? Maybe if I want to deal with such trivial security problems which is more easily resolved by not being suckered into the "costs nothing" parade, the fact is such comapnies, regardless of their statet intent, cannot guarantee your privacy and as such is clearly noted in the usage agreement, more importantly is the indemnity clause which most people do not read. Now consider researching who their affiliates are, of which many may have access to your information for contacting you.
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RE: Lock Down Your FaceBook Profile in 20 Minutes (Video)
fibreoptik 10th May 2010
Why do you JERKS keep posting all these articles making people all paranoid about who might see their beach vacation bikini pics... You are destroying one of my favorite things about Facebook: browsing albums full of hot girls on their vacations without needing to ask for their "friendship" first. Damn you!! silly
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Contributr
RE: Lock Down Your FaceBook Profile in 20 Minutes (Video)
jperlow 10th May 2010
@fibreoptik Trust me, theres plenty of great stuff on Flickr.
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RE: LOL! Flickr...
zach.winchester Updated - 10th May 2010
@jperlow ...wow, I tell you what, I used to think Flickr was just a "free picture hosting site..." boy did MY preconceived notions get shattered one time! Geez, misspell ONE LITTLE THING... and SHOOP! There it is!

Yeah, I think Flickr should have a nice big fat flashing warning label - "Warning: Use Spellcheck for your searches, or what comes up may shock you!"

As for Facebook and their privacy issues... have you ever seen "spokeo.com"? You should do a blog on them!

mailto:masterzach21@gmail.com
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RE: Lock Down Your FaceBook Profile in 20 Minutes (Video)
sullivanjc 10th May 2010
The title says it all about the Facebook problem. "Lock down" shouldn't take more than 20 seconds. Even fine tuning shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes.
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RE: RE: Lock Down Your FaceBook Profile in 20 Minutes (Video)
usad Updated - 10th May 2010
After following along on the video very carefully...pausing every so often to make sure I got all the steps...I said to myself, "Do I really need this?" The answer was, "No!"
I deleted my FB account. Now...it's secure!
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RE: Lock Down Your FaceBook Profile in 20 Minutes (Video)
usad 10th May 2010
Oh, BTW...my method took One Minute!
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RE: Lock Down Your FaceBook Profile in 20 Minutes (Video)
hill60 10th May 2010
Why should I lock down my Facebook account?

All the information on it is false and there is nothing connecting it to my real identity.

Then there's my other locked down private account.
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LOL! Flickr...
zach.winchester 10th May 2010
@jperlow ...wow, I tell you what, I used to think Flickr was just a "free picture hosting site..." boy did MY preconceived notions get shattered one time! Geez, misspell ONE LITTLE THING... and SHOOP! There it is!

Yeah, I think Flickr should have a nice big fat flashing warning label - "Warning: Use Spellcheck for your searches, or what comes up may shock you!"

As for Facebook and their privacy issues... have you ever seen "spokeo.com"? You should do a blog on them!

mailto:masterzach21@gmail.com
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I just wonder why they have not been taken to court (yet)....
TTom911 10th May 2010
Constantly changing privacy settings behind users back and OBVIOUSLY against the users intent (many of them deliberately set/tightened their settings already) and as a consequence selling what users do not want to sell (their private information) is in my personal, uneducated opinion VERY close to constituting an offence and I am amazed how these social media websites get away with. In other serious business you are legally required to get consent BEFORE the action that affect the customers interests, so, why not in this field...? Will be interesting to see how long it will take until authorities (or some clever law firms...) start digging into this rather blunt disregard for legitimate user interests...
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RE: Lock Down Your FaceBook Profile in 20 Minutes (Video)
aagsgsdfjh 11th May 2010
Thanks hugely for this video i`ve just been so paranoid about non-friends being able to see my favourite movies list on facebook! Luckily i haven`t included my bank account and pin number in my biography - phew!

Damn those pesky apps trying to hijack my telephone line and electricity supply!
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Oh Lord,
Jared Neale 11th May 2010
I think you just made this video so you could finally say out loud all those words you throw into your opinion pieces and try to make into tech metaphors: Zoroastrianism?
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RE: Lock Down Your FaceBook Profile in 20 Minutes (Video)
tarabonner 11th May 2010
Super Duper helpful. At first I wasn't very concerned about all the privacy settings, but I watched your video I was forced to think about the consequences more and made a bunch of changes. I also nuked a ton of people from my friend list. Thanks much!
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Some things were helpful
bobiroc 12th May 2010
but maybe you are a bit over paranoid.

I totally agree that you should restrict your "friends" to people you actually know in real life but I have some friends and even family members that may not know things like my birthday.

The items under the ad settings and application settings was nice but much of what you said to delete kind of negates the point of social networking
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Hey JP
Alan Smithie 17th Jun 2010
Slightly off topic:

Any comment on Ed Bott's rather mischievous piece about linux malware given your recent issues with facebook and windows ?
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RE: Lock Down Your FaceBook Profile in 20 Minutes (Video)
MACKENZI 11th Sep
I also desire to signal in your RSS feeds. Thank you as soon as once again and maintain up the great operate! nccma cooler
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RE: Lock Down Your FaceBook Profile in 20 Minutes (Video)
PEARLINEI 12th Sep
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RE: Lock Down Your FaceBook Profile in 20 Minutes (Video)
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RE: Lock Down Your FaceBook Profile in 20 Minutes (Video)
SATURNINA 14th Sep
I think the representation of this article is actually superb one. This is my first visit to your site. Thanks a lot and keep sharing the information. Keep updating the information for all of us. Thanks ZDNet Government was launched as the brand's first industry vertical, with a mission to cater to IT professionals in the public secto I agree with your post. However, do you have any sources I can cite for my paper wheel car com bury
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RE: Lock Down Your FaceBook Profile in 20 Minutes (Video)
TOCCAR 25th Sep
Well welcome, hopefully you can become a vital member of the community and really help to push far ahead of google. Which Im sure the development team would love. This will of course earn you alot points too and get you on the leaders board. z d n e t t h a n k Im not sure i come to an agreement with you on every level, howevor it absolutely was a good posting, many thanks for taking the time to put up your ideas.
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RE: Lock Down Your FaceBook Profile in 20 Minutes (Video)
MCKNIGH 26th Sep
Thanks nice info z d n e t I really liked your current article write more..let me add you to its favorite The articles you have on zdnet s i t e are always so enjoyable to read. Good work and I bookmarked it.
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RE: Lock Down Your FaceBook Profile in 20 Minutes (Video)
MEJIAHA 30th Sep
Fantastic news about the new release.I positively enjoying each little bit of it and I have you b o o k m a r k e d to check out new stuff you weblog post.Im not sure i come to an agreement with you on every level, howevor it absolutely was a good posting, many thanks for taking the time to put up your ideas
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good idea about facebook
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good idea about facebook
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RE: Lock Down Your FaceBook Profile in 20 Minutes (Video)
JACOBSONR 14th Oct
Good day to confirm this comment I would appreciate T h e b e s t o f Z D N e t d e l i v e r e d your website very nice to everyone Yes, Oracle is the only one with shared-disk architecture, but that is there advantage. It means you can add or remove nodes and the database lives on. In a shared nothing architecture, if you lose a node, you lose the system. I'm sure Oracle appreciates EMC highlighting their advantage.I also desire to signal in your RSS feeds. Thank you as soon as once again and maintain up the great operate Awesome post! Thank you very much || thanks for nice content this is really benefit to me.

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