Facebook’s privacy settings allow you to control who can see what you post on your Facebook wall. Your wall is the area on your profile where you and others can post status updates, photos, videos, and more. By default, Facebook sets your wall visibility to “Friends”, meaning only people you are friends with on Facebook can see your wall posts.
What is the Facebook wall?
The Facebook wall, also simply called your wall, is the area on your profile where you and your friends can post status updates, links, photos, videos, and other content. It’s a chronological stream of your posts and the posts other people tag you in or leave on your wall. Your wall serves as a public message board for you and your friends.
When someone visits your profile, your wall is the main thing they’ll see to get updates on what you’ve been sharing. They can also leave posts on your wall as a way to interact with you. Your recent wall posts also appear in the News Feeds of your friends.
Default Facebook wall privacy settings
By default, Facebook sets your wall visibility to “Friends” when you first create an account. This means only people you are friends with on Facebook can see everything you post on your wall.
If someone isn’t your Facebook friend, they will only be able to see limited profile information and whatever you’ve set to be Public in your privacy settings. They won’t be able to see any of your wall posts.
You have the option to make your wall posts visible to a wider or narrower audience if you want by adjusting your privacy settings. But the default setting is Friends.
How to see your current wall privacy settings
To check what your current wall privacy settings are:
- Click the arrow in the top right corner and select “Settings & Privacy”
- In the left column, click “Settings”
- Click “Privacy”
- Under “Your activity,” click on “Who can see your future posts?”
This will show you who can currently see things you post on your wall going forward.
How to change who can see your Facebook wall
If you want to make your existing or future wall posts visible to a different audience, you can easily change the privacy settings:
- Go to your wall privacy settings as shown in the steps above.
- Click on the audience selector under “Who can see your future posts?”
- Choose from the available options: Public, Friends, Friends except…, Specific friends, or Only Me.
Public – Anyone including people off Facebook
Friends – Your friends on Facebook
Friends except… – Your friends except people or lists you exclude
Specific friends – Only people and lists you select
Only me – Just yourself
Wall privacy setting options
Here’s more about the different wall privacy options:
Public
Choosing a Public setting makes your wall visible to anyone on or off Facebook. Public walls can be viewed by people who aren’t your Facebook friends.
This is the least private option but can be useful if you have a public profile for professional or social media influencer purposes.
Friends
The Friends option is the default setting. This shares your wall only with people you are friends with on Facebook.
Friends of friends or other people won’t be able to see what you post.
Friends except…
This option allows you to make your wall visible to your friends list minus certain people or lists you want to exclude.
For example, you could use this to show posts to all your friends except coworkers or acquaintances.
Specific friends
Choosing Specific friends lets you precisely select individual friends, friend lists, or groups who can access your wall.
This is the most granular option for limiting visibility.
Only me
The Only me setting makes your wall completely private so that no one else can see what you post.
Changing past wall post privacy
The above steps will only affect who can see your future wall posts going forward.
To change the visibility of existing posts on your timeline:
- Go to your profile and click on the three dots at the top right of a post.
- Select “Change who can see this post.”
- Adjust the audience selector to change the privacy.
You’ll have to manually edit each past post one by one to update the privacy settings. There is no blanket option to update all old posts at once.
Wall post privacy on Facebook Pages
For Facebook Pages, the default wall setting is Public so anyone viewing your Page can see the posts. Page admins can restrict wall posting to just themselves or other admins.
But there is no Friends or Groups option for Pages – the wall is either public or admin-only.
Can I hide my wall completely?
If you don’t want a wall on your profile at all, there is an option to completely hide it:
- Go to your profile
- Click on the three dots in the top right corner
- Select “Turn off wall posts”
This will remove the wall section from your profile so no one can post there. You won’t be able to post either.
Someone posted on my wall without permission
If someone leaves an unwanted or inappropriate post on your Facebook wall, you can delete it:
- Click the “X” in the top right corner of the post
- Select “Delete”
The post will be removed from your wall.
You can also report the post by clicking on the three dots and selecting “Report post.”
To prevent a specific person from posting on your wall, you can unfriend or block them.
Limit who can see new wall posts
To prevent unwanted posts on your wall going forward, you can limit who can post on it.
Go to your wall settings and under “Who can post on your wall?” choose Friends, Friends except…, Specific friends, or Only me.
Conclusion
Facebook walls provide a public space to interact with your friends and share updates. By default, they are visible only to your Facebook friends list. But you can change the privacy settings to make your wall more public or more private. Restricting wall access and limiting posting ability can help avoid unwanted content.