Did something change with Facebook in the privacy settings?

What if your Facebook friends set their stuff in public mode? Or the people you don’t want to see are set to see your friends’ stuff by your friends? As for the like thing, whenever your friends like something, it will appear on your wall. It has nothing to do with your privacy setting. The person with the stuff liked doesn’t even have to know you.

According to an article I just read….Facebook did change some privacy rules for how your activity will influence ads that they then direct your way. That news sent me looking deeper and perhaps these two Facebook pages will help you button things down.

I also found this Digital Advertising Alliance Consumer Choice Page that will show you just how many data mining companies are tracking you and you then will be afforded the option to opt out of having them following you around.

@Mimishu1995 That doesn’t seem to make sense. If that were the case, every single one of my friends “likes” would be posted on my wall. That doesn’t even make sense. Also, some of my “friends” (such as my Aunt) are liking and responding to stuff on other people’s posts, people who they are not friends with, we have no common friends either. It shouldn’t be possible, even if the other people have their privacy set to public. There wouldn’t be any way for my Aunt to even know about those posts, because she’s never heard of these people. Something else is going on.

@Cruiser Thanks, but I looked at all of that stuff before asking this Q, it doesn’t answer any of the questions of how people who are un-related and are not friends in any way, not even friends of other friends, would be seeing stuff. It also doesn’t explain why I’m seeing everybody’s “likes” when before I was not. Something has changed and there hasn’t been an explanation.

@Kardamom I base my like answer on my own experience. I’ve occasionally seen my friends like and comment on stuff of people I never know about and they appear on my wall. So I guess the liking has nothing to do with the privacy setting. Or maybe there is really something between your relatives, friends and the one you don’t know? Maybe they are friends but you don’t know about that?

I don’t use Facebook much so that’s just a little experience. You can take the privacy change into account, or even a possibility of their accounts have been hacked.

I find that when I go in to those people’s profiles, it would appear that we are friends and are following each other. I just unfriend them, unless they turn out to be interesting.

I think there has been a recent change, but not to the privacy settings. Rather, more posts are showing in my newsfeed that my friends have liked – which means that I’m encountering more of their activity that has nothing to do with me, and I now have an opportunity to like or comment on that. Perhaps what you’re seeing is an example of this. Your friend Jane now sees something that you liked in her newsfeed, so she likes it too. (Or whatever.)

Whether your friends can see things that your other friends post is something that you can’t (and never could) control directly. It’s up to either the poster (who can limit their audience to friends only) or the newsfeed reader (who can choose not to see a specific person’s likes and comments on other people’s posts.

@Mimishu1995 I think you are confusing your news feed with your wall. The only things that are get put on your wall are things that are posted there by you or others that you allow to post there. No one’s likes get posted there.

@dappled_leaves You seem to have to most correct information. I’ve checked with several other people on Facebook and they’ve noticed the same thing. It’s not because any of these strangers are now suddenly friends with each other like @Mimishu1995 suggested (they don’t know each other and haven’t “friended” each other) they are seeing stuff in their newsfeeds when I (or any of you) like or reply to anyone in your own “friends” posts, whereas before, they would never have seen any of that. It’s on Facebook for making a really bad change without warning. Tonight, my Aunt told me that she’s loving all the great posts I’ve been putting on Facebook. Thing is, they’re not my posts. They were posted by someone else, someone that she doesn’t even know and is not friends with. I had to point that out to her. In her news feed it appears that I am posting stuff, when in reality, I’m only liking someone else’s stuff.

@Kardamom What I’ve seen some of my friends do is post those copy/pasted PSAs that beg people to respect their privacy by clicking on their profile and opting to not receive notification of that person’s likes and comments. I haven’t seen one of those in a looooong time, and in fact, I don’t think it’s even possible to opt out of seeing likes and comments anymore (having just spent a minute trying to find that option). .

If this is a recent change, not being able to opt out of seeing likes and comments, then I suspect there might be a bit of an outcry. Some people really hate having their friends see that sort of thing. Facebook often responds to that sort of pressure on a minor change that affects privacy. I suspect the new prominence in the newsfeed is here to stay, though.