Facebook is one of the most popular social media platforms, with over 2.8 billion monthly active users as of Q4 2021. With so many people using Facebook to connect with friends, family, and even strangers, an important question arises – who can see the things you post and the ways you interact with others on Facebook?
The answer depends on your privacy settings. Facebook gives users granular control over who can view different types of content. You can customize settings for individual posts, limit audiences for your entire profile, restrict visibility of past posts, and more. Understanding these options is key to managing your privacy on Facebook.
Public Interactions
By default, many interactions on Facebook are public. This means they can be seen by anyone on or off Facebook, even people who don’t have Facebook accounts. Public interactions include:
- Posts, photos, videos, and other content shared to a public audience
- Liking public pages and following public profiles
- Commenting on public posts
- RSVPing to public events
- Checking in at public places
- Using Facebook features like Marketplace in a public way
You choose the audience when posting content. The default is public. Switching the audience to Friends, Specific Friends, or Only Me makes the post private.
Comments and reactions on public posts are also public. Anyone who can see the original post can see all interactions on it.
Friends and Customized Audiences
You can limit viewing of your posts and other interactions to Friends or Customized lists of friends:
- Friends – anyone connected to you directly on Facebook
- Close Friends – a list you manually create
- Acquaintances – another customizable list
- Specific friends – selected individuals
When you post content, upload photos, or interact with friends’ content, you can choose these audiences instead of Public. This limits visibility.
However, friends can still screenshot or download and share your content with others outside the intended audience. So true privacy depends on trusting your connections.
Interactions on Friends’ Profiles
When you interact on a friend’s profile, that friend controls the privacy:
- If their profile is public, your interactions will be public too
- If their profile is friends-only, only mutual friends will see
- If they limit old posts, your interactions on those may also be hidden
In your own privacy settings, you can limit which friends see your posts and info. But you can’t control privacy of interactions on friends’ profiles.
Private Profiles and Posts
Here are ways to keep your information more private on Facebook:
- Set your profile to only share with Friends instead of Public
- Limit viewing of past posts to Friends, Close Friends, or Only Me
- Create friend lists for different groups and share posts to specific lists
- Use Friends instead of Public audience when posting and interacting
With these controls, you can ensure only certain people see your profile info, new posts, and interactions.
Networks and Connections
Information about your Facebook networks and connections has varying levels of visibility:
- Your friend list is private by default
- Pages and groups you manage are public
- Pages you like are visible to your friends
- Your following/followers are friends-only
- Others can see mutual friends and friend suggestions
Adjust settings like showing a small friend list and reviewing tags to limit what’s available about your network.
Location Information
Facebook uses your location for various features, like location tagging, events nearby, and more. Visibility depends on your settings:
- Past location history is private
- Location tags on posts follow post audience
- Friends can see your current city in profile
- Location-based features rely on enabling location access
Review location settings regularly and turn off access if needed. Also consider removing old location tags.
Activity Outside of Facebook
The Off-Facebook Activity setting controls visibility of your activity on other websites and apps:
- Off-Facebook history is private by default
- If enabled, websites send browsing activity to improve ads
- Friends can’t see individual activity details
- You can clear history and disable future tracking
Keep this setting disabled or clear history to limit external activity visibility.
Searchability
Facebook profiles, posts, and interactions can be discovered through search engines like Google:
- Public information may appear in search results
- Posts shared to Friends may also be searchable
- Search indexing depends on robots.txt and privacy settings
- You can ask Google to remove search results
Reduce searchability by enabling privacy settings and requesting removal of specific results.
Facebook’s Access
Facebook has broad rights to your information and activity on the platform:
- Content and data can be used by Facebook without privacy restrictions
- Information may be shared across Facebook’s companies
- Data is collected for ad targeting and other purposes
- You agree to extensive terms of service when signing up
Understand that anything shared with Facebook can be used by them, even data not visible to others.
Deleted and Deactivated Accounts
With a deleted or deactivated Facebook account, some data persistence risks remain:
- Facebook may retain data for extended periods after deletion
- Backups and records held by others can’t be deleted
- Deactivating temporarily saves data and can be undone
- Legal requirements may prevent permanent erasure
Assume some Facebook data remains available indefinitely, even after account deletion.
Conclusion
Facebook offers extensive options for controlling who sees what you share and do on the platform. But true privacy depends on carefully configuring and assessing settings, lists, and audiences. Public interactions, searchability, and Facebook’s own use of data mean potential visibility far beyond your friends list.
Understanding visibility and privacy risks allows informed choices about what to share and with whom. But information shared online often cannot be made 100% private again. So consider social media interactions carefully in light of who can see them now and in the future.