How to re-enable Facebook Privacy (sigh, again)
Today Facebook's latest privacy flub is in the spotlight, and you might just want to check yourself before you get wrecked. The incident occurred some time ago – a few weeks, or so – and it affected probably.... 14 million users, more or less. The good thing is that posts written before May are still private. The bad thing is, everything else might not be.
What went wrong?
At some point in mid-May, a software switch of some sort accidentally got thrown. The problem wasn't that posts were going public, the problem was that, by default, all new posts weren't private. Default is supposed to stick to the preferences chosen by each individual user – and that didn't happen.
Instead of sticking to "Private" or "Friends" settings for each new post, Facebook posts were set to "Public" by default. As such, any post you've made in the past several weeks that you meant to be Private might well have been posted publicly. You're gonna probably want to check on that.
Again, posts made BEFORE May should be just fine. Before that, the default setting for each posts's privacy was whatever you chose. That's how it was supposed to be.
How do I fix this?
You'll want to check each individual post you've made since the start of May, just to be extra safe. Check the privacy of each post, and make certain they're set to Private if you meant for them to be Private. Switching from Public to Private should be easy. Fixing any monstrosities of social madness your posts may have caused in the past couple weeks – that might be more difficult.
You can also opt to turn ALL of your posts private. To do this, you'll want to go to Settings. Select Privacy from the left menu, and find Your Activity. In Your Activity, select "Limit the audience for posts I've shared with friends of friends or Public." Tap Limit Old Posts – and you'll be good to go.