>> Hi I'm Molly Wood from Cnet.com here with a quick
tip on how to preserve your privacy on Facebook and
manage your millions of friends. Now, you know this
problem: You have a manageable number of friends and
then all of a sudden the husband of the sister of the
third bridesmaid at your best friend's wedding from
ten years ago starts friending you or, Heaven forbid,
your parents showup on Facebook. And then, before you
know it, it's out-of-control and everyone knows too
much about you and it's madness. The key to getting
it all under control is this: Friends lists. The
first thing you need to do is get to know the limited
profile list. By default, you have a friends list and
a limited profile list. Now, if you want to make
things simple in terms of privacy, you can just keep
friends you don't know very well on the limited
profile list. So, if someone adds you as a friend and
you don't know them, before you accept click this:
Add to friend list and then choose limited profile.
Now, in the old Facebook design, profile was a
separate profile that you actually had to maintain and
edit. Now you just go over here to settings and then
choose privacy settings and then choose profile. Here
you can set exceptions for what people can see when
they visit your profile. Let's say you don't want
your new kind of friends to see all of your personal
information or wall posts. You just click this drop
down and choose customize. You'll see an option that
says: Accept these people. There you can type in a
specific friends name or type limited profile to block
everyone on that list from seeing those updates. Now
make sure you don't miss this contact information tab
up here. This is where you can decide who sees your
phone number or e-mail address. And, hey Facebook,
these options should be on the main page. Okay? Now
the other thing you can do is create new friends
lists. So, say you want to keep work friends and
personal life separate, you can create a list called
work friends and then you make sure that they don't
see your status updates or your wall posts or
whatever. Or I have lists for my in real life friends
and then the rest of the world. Now, these options
are a little bit hard to find on Facebook, but they
actually let you get very specific about your privacy
options. Play around a little and then maybe you
won't get fired for saying crazy stuff about your boss
on your wall. For Cnet.com, I'm Molly Wood and you're
welcome.
