HOW TO AVOID
BY CHRISTOPHER NULL 路 ILLUSTRATIONS BY MICK WIGGINS
Who knew your boss could see so much of your Facebook pageincluding the pics from your wild weekend? Social networking is essential these days, but oversharing can lead to underemployment. So take some practical steps to control what others see about you. 禄 UST 2009
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Friends
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The power of sociaL
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information about your life with other people. But along with that ability comes the risk of shar ing sensitive information
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work grows well beyond you r core ci rcle of friends. Using Tw itter and Facebook effectively takes more than discretion; you should know how to tweak the settings for these services so that you have: full control over who sees what on your racc:book page or on Twitter. [n this story, we'll cover both sides of the: coin: how to use the tools at your disposal to keep your profiles in che<:k, and how to handle the etiquette side of the: equation, as well. The gankn-variety f~shman may not have much to worry about, but it's a different story if you-as many people are increasingly doing-are using Face'book and Twitter not for updates about your meals, pets, and drinking binges, but for professional purposes. So we've outlined here a handful of common disastrous scenarios in which one (or both) of these social networks was misused, as well as the best way to prevent or remedy the problem. But in the end you' ll find that the fundamentallesson is invariably the same,
Home
Profile
and that's to remember the golden rule of all social networks: Never forget that the whole world is watching.
Facebook Disasters Ignoring Facebook's privacy optionssome of them fairly new and not well known-can trip up users in a number of ways. Here are some of them.
Overshari ng With the Boss Thtdlsa..sttr: Ann played hooky from work, calling in sick, and spent the day sunbathing, updating her Facebook Status on her laptop all the while. The next day, her boss confronted her with the evidence that she wasn't really ill, causing severe embarrassment and a reprimand (plus a day of docked pay). Thesolutlon: In this day and age, professional and personal lives often hecome intertwined, and Facebook can
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THE ENTRY TO all Facebook privacy settings Is on this pa!l". But thoroughly exploring all lour of Its subpages can take hours. (We'll point you to Some 01 the most Important settings.)
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'UMITED PROFILE'IS a default group for less-wanted contacts, but you'll still need to spedfy what rights this group should have. be ground zero for this. You might momentarily forget that you have "friended~ your boss, and that he has the same access to your ramblings on Facebook as do your real-life drinking buddies. But you can change that. Using Facebook' s lists settings might have made the most sense for Ann. Lists, one of the newer features of Facebook, allow you to organize people into groups and then assign each group different levels of access to your information on Facebook. Lists let you set who can see what on your profile. For example, if you 've added someone as a friend but aren't sure about them, you can relegate them to a list that you name "limited Profile, ~ which will limit how much of your profile that pe rson may view and interact with. You can also c reate lists for work, school, special projects, or anything else, but by default the lists do n't change how your profile displays. To work with Lists, click the Frimds button (top bar) and -tCrrale in the left column under Usts-Of just put people on any list by using the 'Add to list' drop-down menu next to th eir name. Next. you need to specify how much of your infonnation on Facebook members of each list can see. To do this, visit the Privacy Settings page (hover
Profile over 'Settings' in the top right of the screen, and click Prillflry Smillgs inside the box that pops up; or go to www. fac~book . comJprivacy), then select Profile. Here, select CusTOmize ... from the dropdown menu next to whkheve r section you'd like, and type the name of the list in the box under ' Except These People'. For Ann, dropping he r workmates imo a ~ work~ list and dialing down that group's access to the bare minimum would have saved her a lot of trouble. Specifically, she should change the 'Status and Links ' setting so as to exclude the Limited Profile list.
He Knows Where You Live Thedisaster: Getting far away from exboyfriend Bob wasn' t the main reason Mary moved to Pittsburgh, but it was one of the main benefits. So wh= Bob showed up at her new job, she was naturally disturbed. How did he find out where she was, she asked. ~ It was on your Facebook profile," he replied. Thesolution: All users have extremely fine-grained comrol over what gets on their Facebook page, but few take full advamage of these features. The comrols are found in the Privacy Settings page under 'Profile', reachable
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as outlined above. Here you'll find a list of ten items on your profile that you can turn on or off, each to a differem group of Facebook users. 'Profile' lets you choose whether to block people from seeing anything beyond the most basic information (name and ne twork) on your profile page, while 'Basic Info' aUows viewing of gender, birthday, relationship status, and the like. 'Personal Info' opens the door a little wider-to your ~about me~ section, imerests and favorites, and so on; ' Status and Links' comrols who can see your btest status update. Most of the categories are self-explanatory (jUSt dick the question-mark kon if you need help) and can get pretty detailed. But
this is also an advantage: If, like Mary, you don' t want to advenise where you work, you can tum off that detail here. Also, dick Salle Challg(s 3t the bottom of any Facebook settings screen, or your settings will not be updated. What should you change these settings to, then? Facebook offers numerous choices for e3ch category: Everyone, My Networks and Friends , Friends of Friends, Only Friends, and Customize. Everyone is self-explanatory; My Networks and Frie nds is less inclusive, limiting profile viewing to anyone you ' re fri=ds with or with whom you share a network; Friends of Friends essentially gives you two degrees of openness instead of one; and Only Friends is exactly how it sounds. The Customize option gives you complete command over your network settings: You can limit viewing of your profile to certain networks and, in some cases, subsets of that network. Current students, for example, can prohibit faculty or othe r undergrads from viewing their profile. How much to lock things down is up to you. In Mary' s case, making her Profile visible to 'Only Friends' would have prevented Âť an unpleasant surprise visit.
The Essential Guide to Facebook Etiquette WHAT'S OKAY ON Facebook? On sites such as MySpace. anything goes, but Facebook is a little mOl""e refined In its etiquette roles. Not a lot more refined, mind you. but a little. Keep the~ tiPS in mind whether you 're just making your first friend or you 're now topping 1000. o WhoshouldyOtJfriend? Some people have an all-inclusive approach to Facebook and will accept anyone: some want only real-world contacts in their friend list. The right approach is a per!)Qnal choice. Just bear in mind that the bigger your friend net is. the more application, event, chat -seSSion, and cause invitations you 'll be inundated with-and that can lead to s.ome uncomfortable moments and the occasional friend purge. o Easyontheupdates As WIth Twitter, oversharing can be a problem. Every meal. every TV show watched, and every weather condition need not be the subject of a status update. Ask if anyone will care about your comment before you start typing.
o 'Now, ehoose 12 fTll!f1d s....' It's fine if you want to take a ' Which sena[ killer are you?" qU Iz. But these quizzes eXist to get an ever-increasing num ber of people to try them. At the end of each quiz you'll almost always be asked to invite additional people to take the quiz, but there's no need for that unless you think they'll really enjoy it. Look for a 'Skip this step' or 'continue to result' button, which should be somewhere on the page in tiny type; click it, and you won't send the qu iz to anyone. On the follow ing screen. the 'Skip' button Will further keep the qu iz from showing up on your Wall or sharing it~lf on friends' Walls. o Um ltFacebookChat An open Facebook window doesn't mean !)Qmeone IS automatically available for a chat session. Facebook Chat is like any other instant messag ing platform-use it appropriately recognize that your friends may be too busy to respond immed iately, especially during buSiness hours. o Don't 'poke' people At least not if you're over the age of 16.
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The Stalker Problem Thedisaster: jessica is worried about the creepy messages and Wall posts being ldt by some guy she doesn't know but whose friend request she accepted. She doesn't want to de lete her account, but she does wish to get rid of the stranger and se t her profile to be discovered only by those people she allows. Thesolution: Fin>t, Jessica should add the possible stalker to a Limited Profile list, as outlinerl earlier. If you have a hostile stalker, you can remove and/or block them: Go to the person' s profile page and then dick the R(mIJlItfivm Frimdr option at the bottom of the left column. If the person persists in friend requests, you can block the stalker altogether by going to the Privacy page and typing their name in the sean:h box in the ' Block People' region. Standard Facebook-style sean:h results will pop up; JUSt click Block P(rrIJn next to their
name, and they won ' t find you in a search, or view any part of your profile. For a stronger level of privacy and security, you can temporarily "go dark" by making your profile virtually invisible. Go to the Privacy settings page and dick Starch. Set the Search Visibility drop-down seltttion to Only Friends. This tells Facebook not to show your profile in public searches on the site. The Search Result Content section lets you choose whether to show photoS or lists of friends and links. If you don't wan! to be contacted at all, remove th e check marks by both options. Finally, you can use the Public Search Listing option to allow or prevent your profile from appearing in major search engine results such as those of Googl e.
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The Essential Guide to Twitter Etiquette
file pag~ is stuff~d with ~ nough frivolous junk to embarrass a fourth-grad~r. That page didn't go over well with the hiring manager at the job she was applying for. She heard through the grapevine that she didn't g~t the gig because he found her pag~ and thought she waSll't serious enough to merit an offer.
BECAUSE IT'S JUST a messag ing platform , Tw itter is far less complex than Facebook, but misuse and abuse seem just as common. Some of our favorite Twitter etiquette rules follow. • Reeonsldertherunning commentary Live-tweeting sporting events or conference speeches may seem like a public service, but who's listening? If you commonly use Twitter as a once-aweek statu s update, but then abruptly let fly with 80 tweets in a day, you'll aggravate lollowers who aren't expecting their account to be so overtakerl. Co nsider a blog post Instead, or offer a Sin gle succinct observation each hour. • Understand @replies Twitter'smain faili ng is its inability to organize con versations, unlike Facebook, and overuse of @ confuses followers. Use an @ replyonly when you're add ing to a conversation
ThesolutJon: Paring down the digital clutter isn't as tough as cleaning out the garage, but it does take some effort. However, if you allowed, say, a trivial quiz to drop a box into the left column of your Info page, it's relatively easy to get rid of. Just click the pencil icon located in the top-right corn~r of the box and then select Rmloll' Box. Nondefault applications that have b~~n added to the main column on your Info page require a little more work: Click the ApplicaTions button in the bottom left of the screen, and then dick EdiT ApplicaTilJm at the bottom of that list. On the page that appears, browse to find the application you'd like to remove. Click EdiT Smings, and then click rrmIJ{lt next to ' Info Section' . You can also remove unwanted tabs this way, by clicking rrmOll( next to 'Tab' . Next, turn an eye toward locking down what applications-whether they appear on your page or not-are p~r mitted to post to your account. On the
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Thedisastet: Donna has accepted one too many gifts of StarWarr figurines and cutesy buttons- and now her pro-
publicly. "@bob-YeahIknow"isawaste of everyone's time. Instead, use a "0 " (direct) message (type a 0 where the@ would normally be)--Qnly the person you're responding to can see It. • Goeasyonacronyms Unless you're really crunched for space, there's no need for abbrevo-speak if your phone has a full QWERTY keyboard. (Fitting tweets into a sirlgle message is also good etiquette.) No matter what. spelli ng still counts on Twitter. ·Thlnk about the venue As one reporter learned, it's not okay to tweet a funeral Tweeting any sacred ceremony (wedding, bris, court proceedings) is gerlerally a no-no. If you 're unsure whether a tweet or two would be all right, ask the event's host. Be prepared to receive a funny look in response , though. • Learnthe lingo Check out our "TWitter Commands Relercoce Guide" on page 103.
Privacy Settings page, d ick NCWI Feed andWa!!, and you can start paring down t he amount of junk tha t Fa(ebook uses to automatically popu13te your Re(en! A(tivity. What you (hoose here is a matter of personal preferen(e (see also our Facebook etiquette tips on page 99), and how spare you wan! your page to appear. Un(he(king boxes on this page means fewer items on your profile. The selections are largely selfexp13natory, so tweak at will. But just removi ng an application box on your Profile page does not remove the app from your profile ( ompletely. To do that, you have to go behind the s(enes a little. Click the Applicariom button at the bottom left of the page, and then click Edir Appiicariom in the menu that pops up. Change the 'Show' drop-down to 'Authorized', and you ' ll see every application that you have given a(cess to your profile. If you're like me, you'll have dozens and you won't remember most of them. First, delete anything you no longer use (or want to use) by cli(king the X, then Remove at t he pop-up. For the apps you wish to kee p, you can make them less (hatty by clicking Edil SaTingI. Click Addirio/fal PenniIsiol1I and uncheck PubliIh rumI aCTiviTy ({) 111.1 wall, and you' ll no longer see updates when you playa Fa(ebook game or send a goofy "gift" to your girlfriend.
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The Tell-Tale Heart Thedlsa.5ter: Nancy broke up with her boyfriend and changed her relationship status to 'single'. Now a giant red hean is announcing her newfound availability to the world. An item in the righthand 'Highlights' column announces the fan to all her friends. The trouble is, t he thing looks like a singles ad . Thesolutlon: It may not be instantly
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obvio us, but you can delete anything from your Wall. Just hover over the item you wa nt to get rid of, and you ' ll see a ' Removee' button suddenly appear to the right of said item. Click that but· ton , and the item is gone for good.
Smile for the Camera Thedlsaster: Someone tagged Ben in a photo on Facebook, and he hates the shot, taken at a party-his eyes are closed, and he's dearly inebriated. ThesolutJon: While you (an't delete someone else' s photograph (tl)' asking nicely), it's easy to remove a tag of »
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Should a Been Working Thedisaster: Dy13n spent almost an hour playing a Flash game on a Web site when he was supposed to be working on a report for the boss. He didn' t get (aught-but the game posted his high s(ore to his Facebook profile wi thout his knowledge. The boss saw that score on his Wall, which earned Dylan a le<:ture about wasting company resources. Thesolution: Putting aside whether he should have beeen playing thee gamee, Dylan would have beeen better serveed by turning off the ability for third-party Weeb sites to post to his profilee, a feature known as Facebook Beeacon. To dis ablee this, visit PrilJacy Smings,
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Setting Facebook's E-MaiL Permissions FACE BOOK TREATS WHAT it ,>lap,> up on your Wall and what rt e-mails you about separately, '>0 you'll have 10 vl,>it a different '>!!Ctlon 10 change what the network sends you via e-ma il. You'll find the,>e settings by clicking Settings (top-right comer) then the NotificatiOns tab. Get ready to clic k, aga in and again: The page ha,> more than 50 different e-mail settings lor the main Facebook application alone, plu,> a setting lor each of your add -on applications. Turn as many to 'Off' as you care to.
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facebook yourself from any picture, which will remove it from Facebook's 'View Photos of Me' pages. To do so, just find the offending picture and click remove lag next to your nam e in the caption. Once the tag is removed, you won't be able to he retagged on that panicubr photo.
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You're Not an Advertisement Thedlsaster: Bruno was horrified to discover that his name was attached to an ad that was spammed to his friends without his permission. What gives? Thesolutlon: "Social ads" are Facebook' s term fora pranice that puts your name on an ad for a product and then forwards it to your friends, without your explicit pennission. As you've nothing hut a headache to gain by allowing this, turn it off. Go to the facebook Privacy Page and click News Feed and Wall, and then select the Social Adl tah. Change the selection to No on,.
Spam Central Thedlsaster: Kris woke up one morning to discover that her facebook friends had been spammed with a message, ~Check out mygener.at." She didn't send the message, and is reasonahly
Get a Vanity Facebook URL YOU WOULDN'T HOST your personal Web site on a Tripod account with a randomLy generated URL. So why should you settle lor a Facebook page whose URL is Ind icated by nothing but a numericallD? MemorabLe Web Address (~pps.facebook.comJwebaddrfssj) gives you a vanity URL that redirects 10 your Facebook profile (or any page or group); for example, 'http://profile.lo! null' instead of 'http://www.facebook. com/profile.php?id=718386140'. If you would like to put your Facebook link on your business card or e-mail signature, this is a convenient way to de-ug~fy things considerably. (Of course, you can also use your favorite URL-shortcning service to do a similar job. too.)
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SO-CALLED SOCIAL ADS an! DII!! tit FlIc1!b1l9" mlll1! :mnll}'lng 'ntul1!s. ChIlOStng 'Nil lin!!'
next to 'Appearance In Social Ads' can put a halt to this kind of social-network spammlng. worried that her account was hacked. Indeed, faceoook is becoming a popular target for scammers, phishers, and spammers. The method tyPically used involves a phishing site (often with ' .at' in the URL) that looks just like facebook and then:by tricks you into giving up your password and user nam e. The site then takes control of you r account and begins spamming your contacts with the phishing site's URL in the hopes of obtaining even mon: log-ins. Thesolution: Conventional security softwan: won '[ help much with attacks like this-though antiphishing add-ons can help to some extent-so using common sense is our best advice. Keep your password priva te, and make sure the site you're viSiting really is facebook and not a malicious knock-off.
Twitter Disasters As a social networking tool, Twitter is even more open than Facebook-which is all the mon: reason to employ what safeguards you can on its network.
Twitter Never Forgets Thedisaster. Nelson knows everyone who follows his Twitter feed and didn' t think much about trashing a coworker on the service. Months later, long after he'd forgotten about it, the coworker began to follow his tweets-and, with a liule digging, found Nelson' s insult, creating an awkward office environment. Thesolution: Unlik e facebook, Twitter has no mechanism for approving who follows you on the service, and anyone can read your full tweeting history. That
is, unless you protect your updates: Click Selfil1gs and check the Profm nry updaus box. Your tweets now won' t be visible to anyone not approved as a follower. However, anything you 've already sent out will stick around, especially on third-party Twitter interfaces.
Locking Out the Twitter Twits Thedlsaster. Vicky regularly tweets (nastily) about a former friend, and naturally doesn't want that person to follow her on Twitter. How does she keep that person out hefore it becomes an issue? ThesolutJon: first, your account must be ma rked as 'Protected', as descrihed in the preceding item. Then, assuming you know the person's user name, simply block that user on 1'w:itter. This option is on the profile page, in the 'Actions' section. It removes you from their following list and prevents your updates from showing up on their page and from adding you to their Following list again. But your current friends can still copy and paste your tweets, or save them through screen captures. The real lesson: It's probably best not to bash anybody on Twitter if you 'n: afraid they' ll find out about it.
Linking Twitter With Facebook Can Be Trouble Thedlsaster. Dan thought he was being a good Web citizen and killing two birds with one stone by linking his Twitter account to his facebook profile (visit apps.facetJook.com/twiUN to set it up for yourself-but finish reading this item first). The idea is sound enough: Update your Twitter status, and your
Facebook status updates along with it, automatically. However, a Facehook connection isn't always a good idea. If you're live-tweeting, say, a sports event or a conference, you might post 20 tw~ts or more in an hour. That may fly on the rapid-fire Twitter, but on Facebook it's over the line since it clogs up your friends' news feeds. Thesolution: In Dan's case, a Twitter! Faceoook link may not be appropriate, and he may be better off simply unlinking the two networks. The best way to unlink is to browse to Facebook, click the App/icariom button on the bottom-left comer, and then select Applica,ions. Find Twitter on this page and clkk the X to delete the app from your Facebook profile. (If you use a third-party application like TweetDcrk to access Twitter, you'll have to unlink your profile through that app.)
Be Careful What You Link To Thedisaster: In one of his daily tweets, David linked to an article expressing a strong view on a controversial issue. Before he knew it, David was being bombarded with tweets rebutting the article. David found many of these statements to be factually lacking, but still felt compelled to counter them in tw~ts of his own. Hours passed. Soon the afternoon was lost, and David was left frustrated by the challenge of making cogent arguments in 140 characters or less (Twitter'S limit). Thesolution: David didn't want to 'Protect' his tweets because he believed that the openness and public nature of the service are central to the Twitter concept. David should have considered that this openness means people he knows nothing about can see his tweets and the things he links to. Second, when it became clear that David had become involved in a protracted debate with another Twitter user who wasn't making much sense, he should have blocked that user by going to the person's profile and clicking Block next to the person's user name. Problem solved. Afternoon saved.
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The Story of 'C isco Fatty' Thedlsaster. Unlike the hypothetical examples in this story, this one is true (see ciscofatty.com). Connor was offered a job at Cisco, the big networking com· pany. While weighing her options, she idly tweeted to her followers that she now had to decide whether "fatty paycheck" she'd draw from Cisco would justify her "hating the work. ~ Problem is, a Cisco employee saw the tweet and called her out on it, prompting an outpouring of scorn from the Twitter community, as well as a lot of
embarrassment for poor Connor. The solution: Connor obviously should have prot«:ted her Twitter account via the 'Protect my updates ' check box, as described on page 102. But here's the larger lesson: Many people keep tabs on Twitter using filtered keywords, especially company names-and the use of the term "Cisco~ in her tweet was what killed Connor's job prospcrts. A better approach would have been to leave the company anonymo us, or-bener yet-not to tweet about he r job offer at all . •
Twitter Commands Reference Guide HERE'S A GUIDE on how to use and understand TWitter's special commands. ' @US8name ThebasiCbuildingblockof conversations. for publiC replies to a tweet by the user noted after the@sign. • Ous.ername For a 'Oirect message" to only the USCl"" in question. "OM" also w0rk5. • RT @u5ername For"Re-Tweet."ora tweet you want to rebroadcast. Prefaced with the original twJtterer's user name. The following commands ask Twitter for information ortell it how to behave: • ONu5ername or OFFunrname Turns mob ile phone notifications on or off for a single user. STOP and QUIT will cut off
all Twitter SMS messages for all users. Onl~ celt phone notificatIOns are affected. • FOllOWusernalnl!! and lfAVEusemame To see-or stop seeing-the tweets of a user. Tw itter displays a drop-down message saying it has carried out your command. However, to truly take them off your list, go to their Twrtter profile and click Remove next to 'You follow usernome'. • WHOISusername Pops up a briel amount of information about the user. • GETusername retrieves a particular user's most recent tweet. • STATS Tells you how many followers you have and how many are following you.
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