TORONTO – With the rise of Facebook came the age of the ‘creep’ – a generally frowned-upon but widely practiced social activity where one actively searches a social network to find information about someone.
Recently, in efforts to improve upon the social network’s search functionality, Facebook introduced a new feature that allows users to search for hyper-specific things such as, “Friends of my friends who are single,” and wider searches like, “Friends who live in Toronto and like Bruce Willis.”
“Graph Search,” announced in January, was only rolled out to a small fraction of Facebook’s 1.1 billion users – until now.
Starting this week, the social network is rolling out the advanced search tool to all U.S. English language users – which most Canadian users are defaulted to.
Read More: Facebook Graph Search rolls out to US English-language users
The announcement reignited the conversation surrounding Graph Search, which was criticized for being “too creepy” when it was first announced.
In fact, people on the Internet have been working vigorously to prove the tool’s creep-factor. A blog called actualfacebookgraphsearches.tumblr.com keeps track of some of the most embarrassing, funny and intrusive searches people have tried on graph search and includes screenshots of the results (but does not identify the user’s names).
From “Spouses of married people who like Ashley Madison,” to, “Current Tesco employees who like Horses,” the site shows just how far the tool allows lurking to go.
But aside from specific searches like these, users are also able to use the feature to sift through general profile information such as your likes, locations you’ve checked into and, yes, even those embarrassing photos your friends have tagged you in.
In a statement to Global News, Facebook noted that the content that was already visible on your profile doesn’t change with the introduction of graph search.
Facebook said it is also working to notify users that it’s “getting easier for people to find photos and other things you’ve shared with them” – including pages you’ve “liked.”
But how do you review all of this content – old and new – to make sure the information you want to be private is indeed private?
Photos
One of the dangers of graph search is tagged photos.
Whether it’s an unflattering shot that you prayed your friend wouldn’t upload, or an embarrassing party photo that you’d rather your colleagues not see, graph search may increase the chance of people finding them depending on your privacy settings.
Photos can show up in a variety of searches through graph search, including time, location and other people.
Users can review these settings by clicking on their profile and selecting “Activity Log” – once there select “Photos” and then “Photos of You” to reveal a chronological stream of tagged images. Users can then sift through the “Shared With” option to see what images are viewable by the public, friends of friends, or just friends.
This menu also allows users to un-tag themselves from images – though this must be done one at a time.
Remember, all of the photos you’re tagged in are searchable in Graph Search, providing the people who posted them have their privacy settings set to public.
Users should also exercise caution when uploading profile pictures – these images are automatically uploaded with a “public” visibility setting. If you do not want your profile pictures to be set to public, you can change the visibility through the “edit” menu on the photo.
Audience
Similar to profile pictures, users are able to select their audience when they are posting status updates, images and links to their timelines.
While these settings default to what you have selected in your privacy settings, you do have the option to make posts public, viewable by just friends, or friends of friends, through the post menu.
Facebook recommends that users click the lock symbol, located next to the user name on the top right hand side of their browser, to access privacy shortcuts. The category “Who can see my stuff” will determine your default settings.
Likes
Graph Search will review information about you according to things that you “like” on Facebook; whether it be a company, person, event, or political party.
To check what they have liked, users can go to their activity log and select “Likes,” sorted in chronological order. Keep in mind that these results will include friend’s status updates, photos, links and other content liked on the account.
An easy way users can review the pages they’ve liked is to go to their timeline, click on “Likes,” and add or remove likes.
Added privacy
Users who are creeped out by the new functionality may want to crack down on the amount of information they reveal about themselves.
Because the tool can search for people by location, interests, gender, and even relationship status, some might want to edit their profiles to reveal only the information they feel comfortable with putting on the web.
Users can do this by going to their timeline, clicking on “about,” and editing the various sections of their profiles including work and education, living location, contact information, and relationships.
Third-party applications are another source of worry for some users.
Apps that friends on Facebook use may have access to your private information, including your photos and location data, unless you specify otherwise.
To opt-out of third-party apps accessing information, users can click on the lock at the top right hand side of the screen and select “See more settings.” From that menu, select “Apps” and click on the section that reads “Apps others use.”
Users can also edit what app’s they use on their account from that menu.
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