Glitch on Facebook means your old direct messages and posts to friends may be visible to all

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Imagine if some of your direct messages suddenly were made publicly visible to all? The potential for friendship disaster may be very high, especially in the high drama world of middle and high schoolers.

The tech blog TechCrunch has just revealed that this seems to be the case. Posts made in years past to individual friends, and in some cases direct messages, may be revealed in past years on your timeline.

How can you fix it? Easy enough.

  1. Click on your name in the upper right hand corner to view your timeline.
  2. Click on past years (one at a time). It will open up a box (see image) listing all the individual posts you made to others. Hover over the upper right hand corner so that a little pencil icon appears. Choose “Hide posts from timeline.”
  3. Repeat this for each year.
  4. No go help your kids do the same on their timelines.
This is a powerful reminder that we need to be scrupulously careful about the things we post online, even in a supposedly private context like a direct message. As soon as we put it in writing and release it into the ether, we lose control.

 

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