Facebook says the graph search will take already existing information inside the social network and make it a lot easier to find. If you want to find a friend who likes dogs and lives in New York, Facebook will find those people. If you want to see photos your friends shared of food from diners, Facebook will find those images. That means the content you have posted in the past will turn up a lot easier. That’s why it’s a good time to look at how you’ve used Facebook in the past and make sure you are happy with what people find out about you when they search Facebook.

If you have never really looked at your Facebook privacy settings, let’s go through some of the basics to help you know what people can and cannot see, whether they are a friend or just a random person visiting your personal page.

Views from the public
You have a public page. Every person who has a Facebook page has its own link or URL. Depending on your privacy settings, the public can see none, some or all of your information when they visit your page. Here’s how you find your public setting. I’ll use my Facebook page as an example. Look for the little gear box in the right hand corner just below your cover photo.

The little gear box give you an option to “View As” and check your “Timeline settings.” Let’s do “View As” first. Facebook lets you know at the top that you’re viewing your page from the public. You can also view the page as a specific person. This is helpful if you have categorized different friends with different privacy settings.

If you do not like what is viewed from the public, you can go into your Timeline Settings and make some changes. You can also update each section of your About Me page (there’s an edit box in the top right corner of each section) to decide what is public and what is not.

Now that you have seen what your page looks like from the public view, the next step is to analyze what your friends can see.

Views from your friends
The new graph search will allow your friends to search information about you based on your page likes, locations, photo tags and even the music you listen to on Spotify.

The best way to analyze what your friends can see is by looking at your Activity Log. You can find your personal activity log right next to the button you clicked on to find your public settings.

If you joined Facebook a long time ago, I have good and bad news for you.  The good news? Facebook did not archive a lot of your posts until 2007. The bad news? It can take time to search all of your posts from the past. If you are unsure about the choices you have made in previous years, it may be worth undergoing a  tedious analysis of your Facebook activity.

You can visit your Timeline Controls to decide if you want to mass-limit your posts. Facebook also has a number of guides that explain how to share, tag posts and photos, post your location, and use apps.

Photo privacy
If you are concerned about the privacy on your photo albums, you need to go into your photo page and view your albums. Each album has a privacy setting. You can click on the little icon next to the name of your album (you can see what it looks like with my photo on the right from our Chicago Architecture Cruise). Clicking on the little icon helps you decide who can or cannot see your photos. If you see a little globe, that means it’s all public. Remember, your cover photos are always public. Also, if you posted pictures from other apps, like Instagram or Flickr, each of those photos will have individual privacy settings. You may need to go through each photo in those albums if you are concerned. 

Like privacy
There is no quick way to go through all of the pages you have liked on Facebook. But if there’s any time to analyze it, this is the time. If you go to your personal Facebook page, you’ll find your “Likes” in a box just under your cover photo. Click on an edit box to look through some topics like music, books and movies to quickly delete extras you may not like any more. But to get really deep into the many pages you have liked, you have to search through the entire list. Facebook started collecting your page likes in 2008.

Application privacy
If you have connected your Facebook account to other websites, you may want to think again. Your activity on those other sites can be analyzed using the new Graph Search. If you aren’t sure what sites you have connected to Facebook, you can visit your App Settings page. While you are there, you can choose to remove apps. When you click to remove the app, a box pops up to confirm you want to remove it. You also have an opportunity to remove all of the information that website may have posted to your Facebook account.

If you click on the top “Edit” link, you can choose to turn off the Facebook app option. This will prevent using Facebook to sign into any website. But it will also prevent Facebook from using information from the apps in its search.

JEN’S SOCIAL MEDIA TIP: Once Facebook’s graph search is open to the public, the information you have already shared in the past is just more searchable. This is not a bad thing! It’s just something important to be aware of once it is accessible to everyone. (You can sign up to get access to Facebook’s new search by joining the waiting list at the bottom of the Graph Search about page.) If you know your opinions have changed since you’ve joined Facebook, now is a really good time to dig in and clean up. It may take time, but it may ease your mind about what people find out when they search topics and find your name attached to it.

As always, think before you post.

Anyone reading this can copy this text and paste it on their Facebook Wall. This will place them under protection of copyright laws. By the present communiqué, I notify Facebook that it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, disseminate, or take any other action against me on the basis of this profile and/or its contents. The aforementioned prohibited actions also apply to employees, students, agents and/or any staff under Facebook’s direction or control. The content of this profile is private and confidential information. The violation of my privacy is punished by law (UCC 1 1-308-308 1-103 and the Rome Statute.)

It’s untrue. All of it. And if you searched Facebook privacy, you’d probably see an old post from Mashable talking about how the posting is fake this past summer. (The site posted another warning.) Or a wonderful go-to site is Snopes. Here’s what that site had to say about the Facebook privacy posting. This is similar to a growing trend I watched on many different social media platforms during Hurricane Sandy.

When you signed up for Facebook, you agreed to the site’s terms and services. Whenever Facebook changes its terms, it alerts you and gives you a chance to leave the site if you disagree with the changes. The last time it was revised was in June of 2012.

JEN’S SOCIAL MEDIA TIP: If you see posts many of your friends are sharing on a social media site, use a web search tool (like Google or Bing) and find details about it before you reshare it.

The Red Cross has an operations center that tracks messages and helps a digital team target locations and needs across the storm ravaged areas. I had the opportunity to help listen to questions, requests and needs on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. (That’s me in the picture with a purple and white shirt.)

The one thing I found remarkable about social media in a crisis is how helpful and challenging it can be at the same time. If the Red Cross did not have a team of people listening to the online conversations, locations in need could have been missed. And there are SO many portions of the East Coast in need. I may not be a Red Cross volunteer who can travel to help, but I feel like I was able to make a difference from behind a computer screen. There are so many emotions running high during this difficult time.

JEN’S SOCIAL MEDIA TIP: If you are interested in participating in the Red Cross Digital Volunteer program, you can learn more at this link. If you are interested in giving to victims of Superstorm Sandy, you are welcome to take part in the AARP Foundation’s matching fundraiser. If you can help raise $500,000, the AARP Foundation will match it. I also collected many different resources to volunteer and donate on the Red Cross Facebook page.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, did you catch yourself volunteering or donating your time or money in a different way? We’d love to hear from you.

[Photo credit: Laura Howe, American Red Cross]

If you live along the East Coast, you may have spent the day watching the news and following posts on social media while working from home (if the power was still on). Hundreds of thousands of people were asked to stay indoors. It was an environment that was ripe for sharing content online. One of the fastest spreading images was this one:

The photo is really cool. But the actual story behind this photo is this is an old picture of the Statue of Liberty and it’s merged with a supercell photo from Nebraska. I immediately noticed this photo was fake because there are people on the island. There were no tourists on Liberty Island yesterday.

I wasn’t the only person who noticed the spread of unverified or incorrect photos. The site, Buzzfeed, shared a list of incorrect photos. In my quest to learn more about some of the photos that were spread across sites like Facebook and Twitter, I discovered a really fascinating site called, Is Twitter Wrong. I am collecting a list of online articles about the spread of incorrect information and how others are using social media to correct those mistakes.

There are resources out there that can help you decide if a photo is real or fake. My favorite right now is an ongoing page on The Atlantic that is tracking real and fake photos.

JEN’S SOCIAL MEDIA TIP: Stop for a moment before you hit share, retweet or reblog. If you cannot find information on an image or fact you want to share, I suggest passing it over and share something you created instead.

What have you seen online? Do you have sites you follow that helps verify information you discover in social media? Share your lessons and experiences in the comments.