Are you confused or wary of the Facebook ticker? If you answered yes then you are not alone! Below I will give you five tips to ensure your privacy on Facebook, ticker included. I had the ticker on my previous facebook account. (The account that I deleted several months ago)  I didn’t like it. I felt that it gave me insights into people’s lives that I didn’t want nor need to know. It’s gossipy. I felt like I was eavesdropping on all my friends. This isn’t part of my online code of ethics. Quite simply, the ticker did not help me in my quest to guard my heart.

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spy facebook image

 

The ticker shows you the things you can already see on Facebook, but in ‘real time’. If you don’t know what the ticker is, it means you don’t have it yet. Facebook releases all their changes via staggered roll-outs, which explains why everyone doesn’t always get the new features at the same time.

Many people are shocked when they are able to see all these conversations and wonder about the privacy of Facebook. When the ticker was first rolled out, there was an issue and it was quickly pulled. Before you could blink it was reinstated so I assume the errors were fixed.

The ticker does repect the user privacy settings. It’s the user privacy settings which need to be amended. Let me describe a hypothetical situation.

  • I post a status update with ‘public’ as the privacy setting.
  • Mrs. Latte is one of my FB friends and she comments on my post.
  • Everyone who comments on the thread can see what is being written. This is normal and has not changed.
  • Facebook also tells my friends and Mrs. Latte’s friends what was said by inserting it into the ticker.

Why can all our friends see it?

Because I, as the original poster, set the privacy options for that post to ‘public’. The same feature is/was on the old profile BUT you had to visit their profile and scroll down to view it. You could follow a person’s activity from their profile page. Now instead of stalking someone on their own page, their activity comes to you via the ticker, in real time.

You can control the privacy of everything you post to Facebook through the privacy settings next to your post. Remember that when you comment or like something, the comment or like will have the same privacy settings as the original post. You can set your default setting so that it is ‘Friends’ only and not ‘public’.

What Does Public Mean on Facebook?

Public means really public. Really public means that anyone can see it. People on facebook who are not your friends or in your networks. It means public.

Tips n Tricks

  1. Set your privacy to ‘friends’. Double check that your status updates are set with the privacy controls to ‘friends’.
  2. If and when you use the “Public” setting, explain that you are doing so. Then friends can make their own informed decision to comment- knowing that all their friends will learn of their comments.
  3. Change all previous posts you have made via the privacy settings. Go to your profile –> Privacy Settings.
  4. Create lists to post to certain people or certain groups of people. When composing an update use the privacy controls in the top right of the post to manage the individual setting.
  5. Tell your friends why you have restricted your settings to ‘friends’ or lists. Ask them to do the same.

For More Info

Visit the Facebook Ticker Help Topics

“Facebook in particular is the most appalling spying machine that has ever been invented… [snip] Here we have the world’s most comprehensive database about people, their relationships, their names, their addresses, their locations and the communications with each other, their relatives, all sitting within the United States, all accessible to U.S. intelligence.”
Julian Assange