While CEOs from Cambridge Analytica, AIQ and SCL Canada await due process and long jail terms and The Zuck loses millions of dollars and users, we can at least concentrate on what allowed these data miners to steal millions of profile details in the first place: our privacy settings. So let's become a little safer by Tightening Our Facebook Privacy Settings like this:
Click the lock icon at the upper right of your Facebook profile
Click "Who can see my stuff?" to view your profile through other people's eyes.
Be prepared to be shocked when you realise everyone can see your private posts and nudie pics.
Decide what you want public (definitely not personal details like email address, DOB and exact location) and what you want private.
To Change Privacy Settings on Older Posts (cannot be changed back after if you do it this way)
Click the black down arrow top right of your Facebook profile page
Then click Settings
Then Privacy
Adjust the privacy settings ('Limit past posts') on your older Facebook posts to make sure only "Friends" can see the private ones. This cannot be changed.
If you want to keep some old posts or photos public, you'll have to do them all one at a time.
How to check our Facebook Chat History
Facebook's instant messages fans can find its history stored inside each thread or conversation, but it's different for mobile phone/tablet or computer users.
On a Computer:
On Facebook, click or tap Messages at the top of the page near your profile and 'Home' link.
Select the thread you're interested in and its history will open up at the bottom. You can scroll up and down through the past messages.
You can click or tap the small gear icon next to the 'Exit' button on that conversation so that you can:
Add other friends to the conversation
Delete the whole conversation
Block the user
On a phone it's best to use the messenger app to do the above.
Apps
Sometimes apps are added when we aren't looking, especially if we have a habit of logging in through the FB login widget on a non FB website, instead of using their own one. FB games or apps we no longer use need deleting. Remember they have the following data on us when we quickly ticked the Terms and Conditions without reading them:
Photos and videos
Email
Phone number
Date of birth
Hometown
Current city
Religious and political views
Friends list
Relationship status
Work history
Status updates
Likes
Website
Groups we've liked and managed
Most apps won't allow us to interact (play the game, use the software, etc) until we accept their terms and conditions, – usually includes sharing our data with 'third parties' – so if we want access we'll have to accept. Technically we can accept an app's T&Cs and still ask developers to delete our data. We can limit which data the apps can get, can block access completely and even ask them to delete our data they have already. Here's how:
On computer
Click the black down arrow top right of your Facebook profile page
Then click Settings
Then click apps
Then <em>Logged in with Facebook</em>
Click the pencil logo on the list of apps to see what data each app is snuffling away
Deselect the blue ticks to rescue your personal info being copied in future
Click the X next to the app to delete that sucker
On Mobile
Click the hamburger button (the three horizontal lines) top right Android, Bottom right Apple, then 'Account Settings'
Then click apps
Then Logged in with Facebook
Click the arrow logo on the list of apps to see what data each app is collecting
Deselect the blue ticks to stop our personal info being copied in future
Click the X next to the app if you want to delete that sucker
To remove old data we need to:.
Click the pencil on computer, or arrow on phone
Then click 'Report App' at the bottom
Select 'I want to send my own message to the developer'.
Now we can contact the app's creator. Our message should politely ask them to remove 'ALL of our personal data from their database' and that 'we are revoking any future access'. Copy the request into a text file and save it in a safe place.
Some apps throw up an error after we send this message but if we keep the text file we wrote the message in, we can just copy, paste it and send it again. Eventually it will be delivered.
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