With over 2 billion active users, Facebook has become one of the most popular social media platforms for connecting with friends, family, coworkers, and more. As you build connections and share information on Facebook, it’s important to understand who can view and access your profile and page.
Facebook allows you to control the privacy settings for your profile and page to determine exactly who can see your content. Here’s what you need to know about managing privacy and viewing a list of people who have access to your Facebook page.
Understanding Facebook Privacy Settings
Facebook offers customizable privacy settings that allow you to limit access to your profile and page. There are a few key settings to understand:
- Public – Anyone can view your public information and posts, even if they are not your friend on Facebook.
- Friends – Only people you confirm as friends can see your information and posts.
- Friends except… – You can specifically exclude certain friends from seeing your content.
- Specific friends – You can create a customized friends list and limit access to just people on that list.
- Only me – The highest privacy setting where only you can view your information and posts.
These privacy options allow you to tailor access to your profile and page depending on your comfort level. For example, you may want some information like your profile photo to be public, while keeping personal updates visible to just friends.
Viewing Your Facebook Page’s Privacy Settings
To view and adjust the privacy settings for your Facebook page:
- Go to your Facebook page and click on the “Settings” link at the top of the page.
- Click on the “General” settings in the left sidebar.
- Go to the “Page visibility” section.
- Here you’ll see the current privacy setting for your page. For example, it may say “Public” if anyone can currently view your page.
- Use the dropdown menu to adjust the privacy setting if desired. You can choose from Public, Friends, or Only me.
- Click “Save Changes” at the bottom to update the privacy setting.
Adjusting this overall page privacy will determine the minimum requirement for who can access that page. You can further customize privacy for individual posts, photos, videos, and other content as needed.
Managing Individual Post Privacy
In addition to the overall page privacy setting, you can also customize the privacy for each individual post on your Facebook page:
- When creating a new post, click the audience selector under the post text box. This will open privacy settings.
- Choose a privacy option like Public, Friends, Friends except, Only Me, and any custom lists you’ve created.
- Click “Back” to return to your post. The selected audience will now display next to the post box.
- Post as normal. The privacy setting will apply to this specific post.
Setting privacy for each post gives you granular control. You may want some public posts for promotional purposes, while keeping personal updates just for close friends and family.
Viewing a List of People Who Have Access
Once you have configured your desired privacy settings, you can view a list of people who have access to your page based on those settings:
- Go to your Facebook page and click on the “Settings” link at the top.
- Click on the “Page Roles” tab in the left sidebar.
- Here you will see sections for Admins, Editors, Moderators, Advertisers, and Analysts. These are all the people and roles that can currently access your page.
- Click “View” next to any of the sections to see the specific people’s names in that role.
- You can remove access for people by clicking the “X” next to their name in the list.
Reviewing this list is a great way to audit who has access to your page as admins, editors, moderators, etc. Remove any unnecessary access if desired.
Access Based on Facebook Friend Status
In addition to your customized privacy settings, your Facebook friend status with someone will impact whether they can see your page content:
- Friends – If someone is your confirmed Facebook friend, they will be able to access content you share with friends.
- Friends of Friends – Even if someone is not directly your friend, they may still be able to see certain page content if shared with Friends of Friends.
- Non-Friends – If someone does not have any friend connection to you, they will only see fully public content unless you grant other access.
So your core Facebook friends will have access to more content based on friend status. Limit access for non-friends by using Friends only privacy settings where appropriate.
Best Practices for Facebook Page Privacy
Here are some best practices as you manage the privacy settings and accessibility for your Facebook page:
- Review all privacy settings on a regular basis and make any needed updates.
- Limit admin/editor roles to only people you trust to manage your page.
- Avoid sharing personal content publicly if you want more privacy.
- Utilize friend lists if you want to limit access to certain groups of people.
- Set appropriate post privacy instead of relying only on the overall page setting.
- Remove any unnecessary access for people who should not be viewing your page in page roles.
Balancing privacy while still allowing people to connect with you on Facebook can take some trial and error. Leverage all the options for customizing both overall and individual post privacy based on your specific needs.
Conclusion
Your Facebook page privacy settings give you control over exactly who can view and access your profile information and page content. Adjust these settings by visiting your Facebook page, clicking Settings, and configuring options like Public, Friends Only, or Only Me access. You can also view a list of people with current access to your page through assigned roles or friend connections. Managing privacy is essential as you build an audience and share information on Facebook.