How to Protect Your Privacy Settings From Facebook Places

On August 18th Facebook launched Facebook Places which allows you and your friends to share your location with your friends on Facebook. What some people might not know is that your friends, without your permission, can check you into a location. This has all sorts of possible safety implications. This also adds a whole new level to Facebook stalking that can get you into trouble.

Do you really want your buddies checking you into an inappropriate location as a joke and your mom, boss or boyfriend seeing it?

Fear not, though. You can disable this feature fairly simply and I recommend you do this now.

Click on Account in the upper right hand corner of your Facebook page and select Privacy Settings. Then click Customise settings. Scroll down to where it says Things others share. Select the drop down menu next to where it says Friends can check me in to places. If you don't want your friends having the ability to check you into a location select disable.

On this same page you can also specifically choose who sees your check ins and Facebook's ability to include you in "People here now" after you check i. Unless you want people knowing where you are, I recommend making sure Include me in "People here now" after I check in is disabled. Also you can choose specific people who can and cannot see when you check in. The default for Places I check in to is to allow all of your friends to see this. If you're like me and you're friends with a lot of different types of people who aren't necessarily your close personal friends, I would modify this. If you click on the drop down and select customise. Here you can choose specific groups of people or specific people that can and cannot view this.

What do you think of Facebook Places? Will you use it? I think I'll stick to Foursquare!

Leora Israel
		About the author:
		A veteran in the social media space, Leora has worked as a professional blogger, editor, online strategist, and more. You'll often find her in front and behind the camera as a nightlife photographer and web personality. She has also spoken at such conferences as SXSW and Blog World Expo.
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