Why it is time to check your profile privacy on Facebook
Facebook launched Graph Search recently for a select elite and a limited number of users in the US (Update: also select users in other countries). It is a different type of search that anyone can use to combine related public information in search. You can search for single women who live nearby and like to get drunk, married friends who like escort services or photos of friends who fly to Thailand every year.
Graph Search searches public information on Facebook as well as information that have been shared with you specifically. If you are someone's friend and that someone makes available a message to all friends, it is included in Graph Search.
Facebook has been criticized for Graph Search even though it is only a different way of searching contents that are already available on the site. The connections you can make are new and improved, but it is theoretically possible to find those out on your own. It will take longer that is for sure, but you would come up with the same end results.
Graph Search may have a positive effect on user privacy on Facebook. While I can't speak for all users, it seems that many tend to reveal information about themselves or friends without thinking about consequences of those actions. Graph Search may be the steam hammer that some Facebook users need to understand how the public or friends can use the data they post to profile them.
The only viable option to protect yourself from being included in Graph Search results that may be embarrassing, humiliating or life threatening is to make sure that you only share information on Facebook that you are comfortable with. You may ask yourself questions like "would I be comfortable if [insert person name here] would know about that" before you post something on the site. Replace person with mother, father, husband, wife or child for instance to come to that decision.
Facebook has published a new blog post entitled protecting your privacy in Graph Search that addresses some of the privacy related issues of Graph Search. The post addresses several frequently asked questions:
- How do I control what information shows up about me in Graph Search
- How do I control the audience of my likes
- Can people see things about my friends through Graph Search
- How do I view and control what photos of me are on Facebook
So, what I'd recommend you do, is check your profile for information that you have shared publicly or with friends, to remove access rights if necessary. Here are a couple of links to get you started with that:
- Activity Log - This lists all of your activities on Facebook
- Review photos - You shared or have been tagged in
- About - Information that you reveal about yourself on the about page.
Martin, I would appreciate that you do not censor this post, as it’s informative writing.
Onur, there is a misleading statement “[…] GIFs are animated images …”. No, obviously you don’t seem to have take much notice of what you were told back in March regarding; Graphics Interchange Format (GIF).
For example, https://www.ghacks.net/2023/03/31/whats-gif-explanation-and-how-to-use-it/#comment-4562919 (if you had read my replies within that thread, you might have learnt something useful). I even mentioned, “GIF intrinsically supports animated images (GIF89a)”.
You linked to said article, [Related: …] within this article, but have somehow failed to take onboard what support you were given by several more knowledgeable people.
If you used AI to help write this article, it has failed miserably.
AI is stupid, and it will not get any better if we really know how this all works. Prove me wrong.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IYl1sTIOHI
Martin, [#comment-4569908] is only meant to be in: [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/07/09/how-to-send-gifs-on-iphone-two-different-ways/]. Whereas it appears duplicated in several recent random low-quality non relevant articles.
Obviously it [#comment-4569908] was posted: 9 July 2023. Long before this thread even existed… your database is falling over. Those comments are supposed to have unique ID values. It shouldn’t be possible to duplicate the post ID, if the database had referential integrity.
Don’t tell me!
Ghacks wants the state to step in for STATE-MANDATED associations to save jobs!!!
Bring in the dictatorship!!!
And screw Rreedom of Association – too radical for Ghacks maybe
GateKeeper ?
That’s called “appointing” businesses to do the state’s dirty work!!!!!
But the article says itself that those appointed were not happy – implying they had not choice!!!!!!
@The Dark Lady,
@KeZa,
@Database failure,
@Howard Pearce,
@Howard Allan Pearce,
Note: I replaced the quoted URI scheme: https:// with “>>” and posted.
The current ghacks.net is owned by “Softonic International S.A.” (sold by Martin in October 2019), and due to the fate of M&A, ghacks.net has changed in quality.
>> ghacks.net/2023/09/02/microsoft-is-removing-wordpad-from-windows/#comment-4573130
Many Authors of bloggers and advertisers certified by Softonic have joined the site, and the site is full of articles aimed at advertising and clickbait.
>> ghacks.net/2023/08/31/in-windows-11-the-line-between-legitimate-and-adware-becomes-increasingly-blurred/#comment-4573117
As it stands, except for articles by Martin Brinkmann, Mike Turcotte, and Ashwin, they are low quality, unhelpful, and even vicious. It is better not to read those articles.
How to display only articles by a specific author:
Added line to My filters in uBlock Origin: ghacks.net##.hentry,.home-posts,.home-category-post:not(:has-text(/Martin Brinkmann|Mike Turcotte|Ashwin/))
>> ghacks.net/2023/09/01/windows-11-development-overview-of-the-august-2023-changes/#comment-4573033
By the way, if you use an RSS reader, you can track exactly where your comments are (I’m an iPad user, so I use “Feedly Classic”, but for Windows I prefer the desktop app “RSS Guard”).
RSS Guard: Feed reader which supports RSS/ATOM/JSON and many web-based feed services.
>> github.com/martinrotter/rssguard#readme
We all live in digital surveillance glass houses under scrutiny of evil people because of people like Musk. It’s only fair that he takes his turn.
“Operating systems will be required to let the user choose the browser, virtual assistant and search engine of their choice. Microsoft cannot force users to use Bing or Edge. Apple will have to open up its iOS operating system to allow third-party app stores, aka allow sideloading of apps. Google, on the other hand, will need to provide users with the ability to uninstall preloaded apps (bloatware) from Android devices. Online services will need to allow users to unsubscribe from their platform easily. Gatekeepers need to provide interoperability with third-parties that offer similar services.”
Wonderful ! Let’s hope they’ll comply with that law more than they are doing with the GDPR.
No, they didn’t lmao.
https://twitter.com/vxunderground/status/1706523877478670542