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A 14-step guide on going ‘invisible’ on Facebook and living to share the tale

Published Oct 4th, 2014 1:00PM EDT
Facebook Advanced Privacy Settings

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Those Facebook users looking to make their social networking experience more private without ditching Zuckerberg’s empire in favor of something else should know there’s a way to do this, at least according to Business Insider.

FROM EARLIER: This social network wants to kill Facebook by putting your privacy first

The publication has put together a simple 14-step guide that will help you adjust your Facebook settings in order to limit interaction with strangers, prevent them from seeing your shared history or contacting you via email or phone, and restrict access to your history.

Advanced Facebook users might already be aware of how to do some of these things, (by simply going to the “See more settings” section of Facebook’s privacy settings), but the guide also offers some specifically interesting tips for going “invisible” on Facebook.

For example, users can tell Facebook not to include their pages in Google search, or other search engines, so their profile doesn’t show up when someone searches their name.

Users can further manage timeline and tagging settings, to make sure others can’t add stuff to their timelines, or that they can’t be automatically tagged in photos.

Advanced privacy settings are also available for Facebook’s advertising business and they allow users to opt out from having any of their social actions paired with any advertisements. Similarly, advanced settings for apps using Facebook can also be customized, such as preventing friends from seeing your data in case you happen to be using some of the same Facebook-connected apps they are.

Once these steps are performed, users can continue using Facebook as they did before, liking and sharing stuff with friends, but knowing much of their data can’t be accessed by strangers, at least in theory. After all, Facebook’s complex algorithms will likely still mine data from their profiles, no matter how invisible they might be.

Business Insider’s full guide, complete with visual aids and detailed instructions to help you go “invisible” on Facebook but still interact with friends, is available in full at the source link.

Chris Smith Senior Writer

Chris Smith has been covering consumer electronics ever since the iPhone revolutionized the industry in 2008. When he’s not writing about the most recent tech news for BGR, he brings his entertainment expertise to Marvel’s Cinematic Universe and other blockbuster franchises.

Outside of work, you’ll catch him streaming almost every new movie and TV show release as soon as it's available.