Facebook’s new Graph Search feature applies data mining capabilities to the popular social network. You will now be able to search for “friends of friends who live in Chicago” or even “friends who are single women in Chicago” or “friends who are single women in Chicago and like the Blackhawks.” It also allows the user to search photos based on similar criteria.
Facebook’s Graph Search will be very useful for networking whether you are looking for a date or just trying to find a friendly person in a new city. Of course, it also means that other people will have the ability to find you in ways you may not want.
Luckily, Graph Search follows Facebook privacy settings. That is, if your information and photos are only available to a small group of friends they will not show up in the searches of friends of friends or the general public. As a result, this is a good time to revisit your privacy settings.
Since Graph Search is largely based on your profile info, click your name in the upper right of the Facebook screen. Click the “update info” button under your cover photo. From there you have the option to fill in, edit or delete your personal details. To the right of each piece of information (although for some data you have to hit the edit button to see it) is an icon indicating whether a piece of information will be public, shown only to friends or shown to a custom group. Review these settings knowing that soon people will be able to search for you based on them.
- Who do you want to know where you live? Everyone? Just your friends? Just a few friends?
Also click the gear icon in the upper right corner of the Facebook page to review your current privacy, timeline and tagging settings.
Here is a video with more information about Facebook Graph Search and privacy settings.
If you enjoyed this, you may also appreciate my posts on Facebook privacy and Facebook security.
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Kim Z. Dale 