Facebook allows you to control who sees your posts through its privacy settings. You can choose to share posts publicly, with friends only, or create custom friend lists to limit visibility. There are also options to exclude specific people from seeing your content.
Overview of Facebook Privacy Settings
Facebook’s privacy settings allow you to control visibility of your posts in the following ways:
- Public – Anyone including people off of Facebook
- Friends – Your friends on Facebook
- Friends except – Friends except specific people you exclude
- Specific friends list – Only people on a custom friend list you create
- Only me – Just you, hidden from everyone else
You can access these options when posting by clicking the audience selector icon. Your privacy defaults can be adjusted under “Privacy Settings & Tools” in Settings.
Who Can See Your Posts by Default?
Your default privacy setting controls who can see your posts by default when you share content. This can be changed under “Privacy Settings & Tools” in Settings.
| Default Setting | Who Can See Posts |
|---|---|
| Public | Anyone including people off Facebook |
| Friends | Your friends on Facebook |
| Only me | Only you, hidden from everyone |
Unless you change it, the default is typically set to “Friends” for most users.
How to Stop Someone Specific From Seeing Your Posts
If you want to prevent a specific person from seeing your Facebook posts, you have two options:
Unfriend or Block
Unfriending or blocking someone will completely prevent them from accessing your profile or posts. They will no longer see your content in their News Feed.
- Unfriending removes you as friends but does not prevent re-adding.
- Blocking prevents re-adding you as a friend and removes all communication abilities.
While effective, this severs the online connection with that person entirely.
Adjust Privacy Settings
A less drastic approach is using the “Friends Except” or “Custom Friends List” privacy options:
- Friends except – Choose specific people to exclude from your audience
- Custom list – Create a list allowing only certain friends to see posts
This lets you limit post visibility for specific individuals without removing them as friends. You can create multiple custom lists to tailor access.
How to Stop a Friend of a Friend From Seeing Your Posts
Friends of friends (FOF) are trickier to restrict because they are connected to your network. You have two main options:
Review Friend List of FOF
Check the friend list of the FOF and unfriend/block any connections between you and them. This severs the network connection.
Limit Audience for Sensitive Posts
For casual acquaintances or distant FOFs, review privacy before sharing sensitive info. Use “Friends Only” or a close friends list instead of your default “Public” or “Friends of Friends” setting.
How to Stop Your Posts From Appearing in Search Engines
To prevent your Facebook posts from appearing in public search engines like Google, you need to adjust your privacy settings:
- Go to “Privacy Settings & Tools”
- Click on “How people can find and contact you”
- Disable the “Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile?” setting
This will ensure your profile and posts do not appear in public search engine results. However, content shared publicly may still be visible through direct Facebook searches and shares.
Limiting Past Post Visibility
Adjusting privacy settings only affects new posts going forward. To limit visibility of existing and past posts:
Review Old Posts
Manually review your previous posts and stories and limit visibility using the audience selector icon. This is time consuming but will override old settings.
Change Default Privacy
Changing your default privacy to “Only Me” will automatically limit visibility of old posts until you review them individually. You can also restore things back to a wider audience later.
News Feed Filtering
Using filters on your News Feed preferences can help limit exposure of old posts that friends share or re-post. But it does not change the audience on the original post itself.
Conclusion
Limiting who can see your Facebook posts involves:
- Adjusting overall default privacy settings
- Excluding specific people as part of your audience
- Preventing search engine indexing
- Maintaining control over visibility of existing content
Combining global defaults with tailored options for each post gives you optimal control over privacy. Regularly reviewing and updating these settings is key to managing your preferences over time on an evolving social network.