RealtyTechBytes.com

23 May 2010

Reclaim your Facebook Privacy

Posted by Jerry Kidd under: Featured; Rants; Social Media .

There is a punchline to a joke that runs around tech support circles that goes something like this: “Tell them you’re too stupid to own a computer.”

This after a lengthy exchange that ends up with the customer telling tech support that the power is off at their location.  The tech then asks the customer to pack up the computer and take it back to where they bought it and to deliver the punchline above when asked why they were returning it.

Just Google “Too stupid to own a computer joke” if you’d like to read the entire joke.

I bring this up because sometimes we are indeed too stupid to own a computer.  The most recent example of that is the current movement afoot that has many, many people set to delete their Facebook accounts on May 31st.  This is being done to protest Facebook’s privacy controls.  It seems that rather than make an effort to understand Facebook’s privacy controls, these people feel that protesting the existing controls will cause a shift in Facebook’s  stance on privacy.  To me, this is like cutting off your nose because you don’t like the smell of something!

I will admit that understanding Facebook’s privacy controls can be a bit difficult, but with 500 million users, does anyone really think that the loss of even a few million subscribers will faze Facebook?  And I doubt that there will be anything near that number actually unsubscribing.

Here is a better approach.  Learn how to set the privacy controls so that you are only revealing information that you are comfortable with having as public knowledge!  There are several places that you can go to scan your account to see if you are set the way you want to be set, but I will share the one that I like the best.

Go here: http://www.reclaimprivacy.org/ This site has a link that you drag to your browser’s tool bar.  Then when you are at the page on Facebook where you can set privacy controls, you just click the link in the toolbar and it will scan your settings and tell you if you are secure or not.  Here is the link to the Facebook Privacy Control settings: http://www.facebook.com/settings/

The picture shows the results of my scan.  Hopefully yours will look that way too!  If it doesn’t, you’ll be able to see which section of your privacy controls that you need to address.

So, don’t cut off your nose to avoid the stench of Facebook Privacy controls…with 500 million users, Facebook represents a marvelous marketing tool for you and it could be disastrous for you to miss out on the social media revolution.

Need help?  Visit my Facebook business page at http://www.Facebook.com/JerryKiddTrainingandConsulting

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