Facebook Places: How To Adjust Your Settings

Share:

I'm sure by now most of you have seen this notice flying around your newfeeds, inboxes and Skype chat rooms. (click any image to enlarge)

After reading this, I did a little investigating and it's not as bad as it sounds.  Facebook has added a new feature called Facebook Places and it's creating a little bit of panic.  The idea here is for you to be able to tell your friends where you're located by using the iPhone Application.  Your friends can also check in and you can tag the friends who are with you.  For now it's only compatible with the iPhone and only available to residents of the US.  Nobody is going to be able to locate your position at any time using a Global Positioning Application unless you want them to.  Here is an example of what it looks like on the iPhone Application.
(Image from The Facebook Blog)

To get more details about this feature visit The Facebook Blog and read the article titled Who, What, When, and Now...Where and you will see that this is a mobile phone feature and you first must give an application permission to use any information that you add to Facebook Places.

It is a good idea to adjust your privacy settings to prevent your friends from tagging you in a false location.  Read more about this in the AllFacebook.com article titled The Facebook Privacy Settings You Need To Know.
For Facebook's Official explanation of this new feature, visit Facebook Places.

Here is an example of what it would look like if I decided to use this application.

If I spent my time in Parks, this would be a great idea.  When you live in Las Vegas, you don't always want people to know where you are.  I'm going to adjust my settings to be on the safe side.  It's really wrong that Facebook expects us to change settings in order to limit the amount of information that can be viewed by others.   We should be given the option to add things, not be forced to remove them.  I feel bad for people who don't even know about the Settings option.  There are 2 places you need to visit The Account and Privacy Settings.

Account Settings

Account Settings-->Notifications-->Scroll Down to Places-->Uncheck "Tags Me at a place" and "Comments on my visits to Places".

Privacy Settings

You need to edit two places in the Privacy Setting.  To do so, follow these pathways.
1.  Privacy Settings-->Customize Settings-->Places I Check in to-->Customize-->Make This Visible to-->Only Me-->Save Settings
2.  "Include me in "People Here Now" after I check in-->Uncheck Enable Box 

Here is a before and after of what your Privacy Settings should look like when you are finished.

Facebook created a video to explain Facebook Places and Privacy Settings if you need more information.