Facebook Privacy - "Everyone?"

My daughter isn't old enough for Facebook or anything yet (she's 4 lol) But I use Facebook myself. I just wanted to point out that you may want to have children clean out their Applications regularly.

Mouse-over "Settings" at the top right of Facebook, then click Application Settings. It will give you a list of Recently Used applications. These are everything from games to those silly quizzes! If they are not actively using an application, they should click the X beside it to remove it. Those applications have access to your information on your profile, and there's no sense in them keeping that access if you are not using the application!

From that page you can also change the list to "Authorized" and other options to clear out more. You change this using the drop down at the top right of the list where it says "Show".

Remind them that they should read things before they click on them, and before clicking "Allow". Be careful with contests that have fine print. They can be confusing and end up leading you to buy something!

If my daughter was old enough for Facebook, I think I would probably require her to set the privacy settings to only allow her friends to view anything. Might bump it to "friends of friends" if she were in high school lol

Hope that helps!

I'm not sure how old your child is, but I would absolutely moniter her account. If she is not in highschool, then you should have the account sign on so that you can access the account yourself. I agree that your child needs to set all settings to private friends only (I'm an adult and mine are set to friends only because I don't want some perve having access to pics of my kids!). I would sit down and talk with her about the importance of keeping your information private. I would make sure you don't perseverate on perves, but make sure your child understands the dangers of talking to strangers on the web. But also talk to your child about identity theives, and all other sickos on the interenet. And let your child know that you are not necessarily going to read everything he/she puts on there, that you will be monitering it and if you feel that there is a need, you will be checking it. Many kids think that it is like an online diary and that you don't have a right to look, but you have every right because what they put on there is accessible to EVERYONE (unlike a diary that is only accessible to her/him). I would check your local library for age appropriate books on the subject to help you talk with your child.

My kids are too young, but I'm a high school teacher. PLEASE feel free to monitor your child's internet and computer use! You have EVERY LEGAL RIGHT to as the parent! That doesn't mean reading everything they write, but you should have access if necessary and they need to know that you might check it for security purposes, of course you tell them HONESTLY that you won't purposely read love letters and such, but that you will check subject lines and scan for key words every once in a while. Have them walk you through their privacy settings so you can see it is NOT open to everyone! You can also monitor their internet use by looking at the browser history (caught a student on a dating website at school this way!) I don't care if I find google searches for "panties" but I am terrified of girls being seduced by men and tricking them into leaving town (happened to one of my ex-students) so you should be able to see who her facebook friends are--and if you don't know one/some, please ask!

I hope you get some more responses. I know a lot of teenagers using FB.

Definitely have her put all her settings on "Friends Only". And do monitor her use of the computer, whether FB or another social site, or just browsing the web. Children aren't prepared to be wise enough to stay out of trouble on the Internet without some oversight. Adults get into enough trouble online because so much of it is new territory for us. Children definitely need some help with it.

I recently got a notice, through my kids elementary school, about a lecture for parents on internet safety, held at school, taught by a police officer. You might want to call your kids school or your local PD to see if anything like that is available in your area.