If you’re sick and tired of FaceBook’s continual encroachment on your privacy, here’s how to lock it down like a SuperMax prison or give it the Death Penalty.
[UPDATE: FaceBook has made a number of alterations to their Privacy Settings since this article was first published. I've updated the Gallery as well as the videos to reflect these new changes. Additionally, I have re-structured this article so that those of you with simpler profiles can ignore the Centralized Updates/Fan Page stuff which is posted towards the end of the article.]
I finally decided after all of FaceBook’s continual invasions on my personal privacy by sharing data to people and services which I don’t want — and by being completely irresponsible and untrustworthy in terms of computer security — that it was time to lock down my profile and minimize my exposure, while still allowing select people to interact with me on my User Profile.
With FaceBook, this is a very difficult thing to be able to balance, and I’m still not 100 percent sure that I wouldn’t be served by destroying my profile and leaving the service altogether, but I believe that for the time being, I’ve been able to create some sort of “miserable medium” that I can tolerate.
Why I Put This Guide Together
FaceBook is an extremely complicated and confusing online service to use, with lots of settings that are needed to secure a profile and prevent undesired dissemination of information. Because I no longer trust the service whatsoever, I’ve created a “How-To” for the advanced user for locking down their profile and minimizing their risk
Keep in mind that this “Lockdown” I created is an extremely draconian method — nobody will be able to share your information or your statuses, you will not have any personally identifying information unless you absolutely choose to, and only the most essential applications will be authorized.
Also Read: Contemplating FaceBook Hara-Kiri
Also See: Locking down your FaceBook account step-by-step (Gallery)
For those of you who only maintain a simple FaceBook profile, just go through Step 1 and Step 2.
If you’re fed up with FaceBook altogether, go through Step 3 to remove your FaceBook profile completely.
For Advanced Users:
The user for which I have in mind for “Advanced” is someone who is extremely concerned about their personal privacy and security, but also may wish to have people contact them via a brand or a business or some other following they maintain.
In this case I created this “Secure FaceBook Systems Architecture” to suit my own personal needs, in order to be able to interact with essential friends and business contacts in my personal profile, but also to allow anyone to interact with me in relation to my two blogs, Tech Broiler and Off The Broiler.
This requires groups of people to be compartmentalized and thus two separate profiles have to be maintained: Your secure personal profile, and also a Public Fan Page.
Additionally, this method also provides the ability for centralized Status Updates to both the personal profile and the Fan Page via Twitter, using automatic RSS synchronization.
I have added optional “Advanced” sections at the end of this guide which show you how to do this.
