Here’s how you do it: go to the privacy page and click on profile. You’ll see a list of settings you can manipulate. For any setting, select customize and a “Who Can See This?” box will pop up. At the bottom of the box, you’ll see an “Except for These People” option which allows you to enter a specific name or a list. When you enter the name/list, those people will be not be able to see the information related to that setting. You’ll notice that you can basically control every bit of info on your profile page.

Happy Facebooking

Hi Carla, thanks for the comment!

I’ve had friends lists since they were first introduced and there are no options to control what those lists see in the same way I outlined above. I’ve just had another look (just for you) and I can’t find anything like what you’re describing.

I have since found the “remove tag” option, after much searching. Yes, it’s there, but it’s poorly positioned and not obvious.

Thanks again.

Ken, you’re not on your own! I think the problem is most likely the same for everyone.

We naturally set quality brain space aside for the people we know and love the most. But as is often the case, we have dozens and sometimes hundreds of friends!

Anyhow, Facebook does have a grouping option. They call it Friends Lists. What you do is create specific lists with different people then you control which list sees what via your privacy options. For instance, you can create a Co-workers List which would of course contain your co-workers. You then customize the privacy settings for that list to limit the information accessible to those people. For example, you can choose to hide your photos, notes, wall posts, etc., then your co-workers will not be able to see any of those items. Friend’s List also makes it easier to send messages to a group of people. All you do is type the List in the ‘To:’ box instead of each person’s name and your message will go out to that group of people.

Furthermore, Friend’s Lists helps you to control what is shown in your news feed. When you go to your home page, you will see your Friends Lists included in the filter options on the left side of the page. If you click on the name, the news feed will display updates from people in that list only.

Another way to control what is shown in your news feed is to use the ‘hide’ option. If you move your cursor over the right side of a post, you will see a hide link pop up. Just hit that button and future updates by that person will not come up on your feed. This is reversible plus if, at some point, you want to know what’s going on with them, you can always visit their page.

You can detag yourself from a photo, video, note, etc. Just go to the particular item, look for your name and hit detag. Hopefully the person will get the message and not re-tag you. Also, via the privacy option, you can choose to hide any item tagged with you so that if someone does tag you in a photo, video, etc. then none of your friends or networks will see it.

You can do searches based on geographic location but it is dependent on who you are searching for and if they have their location displayed. Many people opt not to include a specific location on their profile pages so it makes it harder to identify them in a search. Facebook probably wont override this in the near future owing to their new privacy policies. If someone doesn’t want to identify where they are, then that info will stay hidden.

I have to say though that a group chat option is a very good idea. That is something I would definitely use. I also agree with you that they should have sensible URLs. It would make things a lot simpler.

My Facebook friends tend to be, people I know from Case Western Reserve, close friends, other Clevelanders I know through social media or local organizations, people I’ve gotten to know fairly well via Pownce/Twitter/FriendFeed and now most recently, my mom.

I don’t actually spend a great deal of time on Facebook. Basically I go there when I get an e-mail about a friend request or some other message that’s worth investigating. Yet most of my FB friends don’t know this. I’ve set up Facebook to include my Google Readershare and Delicious bookmark feeds in my stream.

While I can’t imagine that most of my real world friends want to hear about whatever Webdev/tech/social media/bacon stuff I happen to be sharing, I have gotten emails from a few saying they’re glad that I post it. Since most aren’t social media savvy they don’t even realize it’s happening automatically as a by product of my regular routine. They think I’m an avid FB user, when typically I just glance at their status messages in Tweetdeck.

What they also don’t know is that I draw the line at Twitter. I could tie that to Facebook and have my Tweets update my status message, but that would then cause real confusion. While there is a bit of crossover, I really see my Facebook and Twitter friends as being different audiences so I like to keep my status messages and Tweets separate. But like you I now find that I have several different audiences within Facebook. So you’re idea of sets and tags would be a very good solution.

I’d very much like to be in people’s “don’t send me crazy new FB applications set!”
Cheers.