If you’ve checked your information through the Social Profile Checker and have decided that you want to fine-tune a few privacy settings on your social accounts, here’s our guide on how to do it:

Facebook

Despite some bad press, Facebook is pretty good when it comes to adjusting your privacy settings, and it can all be done in a matter of minutes.

After you have logged in:

  1. At any point during your session, click on the padlock button at the top of the page, right next to notifications, inbox and friend requests.
  2. Click on ‘Who can see my stuff?’ and adjust your settings as required. At this point you are able to control who can see your information. You can adjust it from ‘public’ (full exposure), to ‘friends’, ‘only me’ or ‘custom’.
    By selecting ‘custom’ you can also control which of your friends can see your information. This might be useful for those who are connected to work colleagues.
  3. You can also adjust who can contact you from this bar. Also, by pressing ‘See More Settings’ you adjust a greater range of settings. This is important, as within the ‘Who can look me up’ section you can control which search engines outside of Facebook link to your timeline. Bear in mind however, that it will take time for search engines to stop linking to your timeline – this does not happen instantly.
  4. By going back to ‘Who can see my stuff?’ you can also see your profile from the perspective of different people including friends and those who are not connected to you, to check your settings are as you like.

Twitter

Like Facebook, Twitter’s account settings are fairly easy to access and you can sort out your privacy in the time that it takes to make a cup of tea.

After you have logged in:

  1. Click on the small profile picture in the control bar on the top right of the screen before scrolling down and clicking ‘Settings.’
  2. Once you are transferred to the Settings page, look down the list of options on the left hand side and click ‘Security and Privacy.’ Once here, you can start adjusting which parts of your profile people are able to view.
  3. If you are looking to hide your future posts, it is advisable to mark the ‘Tweet privacy’ option so that only the people that you approve can view your posts. It is worth bearing in mind that with this option people will still be able to see previous tweets in certain areas of the internet.
  4. For those who might have signed up using a well-known or work email address, it is worth unchecking the ‘Discoverability’ box that helps people search for your account via your sign-up email address.
  5. For those that need to take drastic action and/or get rid of unwanted attention, you can block selected accounts so that they cannot see your profile. This also means that you cannot see theirs, so it is worth taking the time to think about this option before blocking.

LinkedIn

Although not as many people will find the need to change their privacy settings for this network, doing so is relatively easy.

After you have logged in:

  1. As with Twitter, click the profile picture on the top right of the screen and select ‘Privacy & Settings.’
  2. From here you are offered a range of privacy settings. Activity broadcasts, new mentions and ‘who can follow your updates’ can be edited here.
  3. You can also adjust whether people can see if you have viewed their profile. Note that by doing so however, you will not be able to see who views your profile.
  4. In the ‘Account’ section, you can also change your profile photo and profile visibility, which will be the primary restriction for profile privacy.
  5. Going back to ‘profile’, it might also be worth checking whether your Twitter feed gets pulled into your LinkedIn profile. If you have discovered material that you want to hide on Twitter, it is advised that you also change this setting on LinkedIn.

Google+

Like most things on Google+, the privacy settings are a little more difficult to adjust than other social media accounts, but once you’re there, you can be sure that everything you share is locked away from prying eyes if you want it to be.

After you have logged in:

  1. Open your profile so that you are in the ‘All’ section of the platform. On here you should be able to see other people’s posts alongside ‘You may know’ and ‘What’s Hot and Recommended.’
  2. Move your mouse to the top left-hand corner and click on your circular profile image. A drop-down menu should then emerge. Click ‘My Account.’
  3. You should then be sent to the ‘My Account’ page where you can edit a range of settings including sign-in preferences and privacy. Click on ‘Personal info & privacy’ in the middle of the screen.
  4. Click on ‘Your Personal Info’ from the bar on the left and then click the arrow on the ‘Google+ Settings.’
  5. From the page that emerges you will be able to change a range of settings that will restrict what people are able to see on your Google+ account. The most important ones to pay attention to are:
  • ‘Your circles’, which gives you the option to share posts with certain people and not others.
  • ‘Photos and videos’ will let you edit who can track your location, download your media, restrict what Google can publicly share and use, and decide whether people can tag you in pictures without permission or not.
  • ‘Profile’ allows you to change whether your communications are advertised, what tabs are available to viewers and whether people can see how many times your profile has been viewed.