Understanding and managing your social media settings to protect your online privacy

Many of us use social media platforms and apps daily, sharing personal moments, professional achievements, and even our locations. Most of us are aware now that these platforms also collect as much data as possible about us by default to gather valuable user information for various purposes, including targeted advertising and user behaviour analysis.

Knowing how to protect your online privacy through settings is part of maintaining control over your digital footprint and online identity to protect your data.

Common online privacy attitudes 

I have nothing to hide or worth stealing, so privacy settings don’t matter.

This mindset dangerously oversimplifies the importance of online privacy. Everyone has something to protect and even if you believe you have nothing to hide, you likely have information you’d prefer to keep private, such as financial details, medical records, or personal conversations.

Seemingly innocuous bits of information can be gathered to create a data profile of you, which in total will reveal much more about you than you realise. For example, just four vague pieces of information about purchases can identify 90% of people in a large dataset. Others can use your data for identity theft, manipulating you through targeted ads, discriminating against you based on your personal information, or harassing you.

Changing privacy settings is too complicated.

While privacy settings can be confusing, this belief often leads to inaction. Granted, with some platforms it feels like they deliberately make finding these settings complex to discourage users from adjusting them, however others provide guides, FAQs and tutorials to help you adjust your privacy settings.

Get into the habit of reviewing and updating your privacy settings across all your accounts. Start with the most critical settings, such as controlling who can see your posts and personal information.

Private accounts are completely secure.

Here’s why private accounts aren’t foolproof:

• Even with a private account, your information can still be vulnerable to large-scale data breaches, including the risk where employees of the platform or those with authorised access could access and misuse your data
• Platforms often change their policies or terms of service, affecting how your data is handled regardless of your profile status
• Your connections can repost or share information you share, including through screen shots and screen recording, potentially exposing it to a wider audience than intended
• Be cautious about granting permissions to third-party apps that integrate with your social media accounts, as even if it’s linked to a private account, they can access and potentially misuse your data.

How to protect your online privacy with platform-specific controls

Social media platforms frequently update their options, so it’s essential to review your settings regularly. These are the main areas to change to protect your online privacy.

Facebook

Profile information control

• Hide friends list visibility: Prevent others from seeing who your friends are
• Manage past posts visibility: Limit who can see your older posts
• Control contact information sharing: Decide who can see your phone number, email, and address

Post management

• Set default audience for posts: Choose who sees your posts by default (e.g., Public, Friends, Only Me)
• Control individual post privacy: Adjust settings for each post separately
• Filter comments: Block certain words or phrases from appearing in comments
• Restrict story sharing: Control who can view and share your Facebook Stories

Use the Privacy Checkup tool to review and adjust your settings quickly

Instagram

Account visibility

• Choose between private/public account: Decide if anyone can see your posts or only approved followers
• Control who sees posts and stories: Customise your audience for each post or story
• Manage profile discoverability: Control how easily others can find your account

Instagram offers a Privacy and Security Checkup to guide you through important account settings

Twitter (X)

Account protection

• Control tweet visibility: Choose between public tweets or protected tweets (only visible to approved followers)
• Set media tagging permissions: Decide who can tag you in photos
• Manage profile discoverability: Control whether people can find you by email or phone number
• Protect IP address in DMs: Hide your IP address in direct messages

Data privacy

• Adjust ad personalisation: Control how Twitter uses your data for targeted ads
• Control off-platform tracking: Decide if Twitter can track your activity on other websites
• Manage data sharing: Choose what information Twitter can share with business partners
• Set location preferences: Control when and how Twitter can use your location information

Twitter provides a Privacy Center where you can learn about and manage your options

TikTok

Account protection

• Toggle private account: Switch between a public or private profile
• Control follower approvals: Manually approve who can follow you
• Manage profile visibility: Control who can see your likes, comments, and other activity

Comment management

• Set up keyword filters: Block comments containing specific words
• Control comment approval: Review and approve comments before they appear
• Use automated content filtering: Let TikTok filter potentially inappropriate comments
• Set user type restrictions: Control who can comment (e.g., everyone, followers, no one)

By ensuring app permissions on your phone are reviewed and updated to only access essential data too, you can enhance your online privacy. It’s common for apps to ask for access to features like your camera, microphone, contacts, and messages, even though they can operate perfectly well without them. In your phone settings, you can select each app individually and review and adjust the settings. 

Take control of your digital footprint

By agreeing to the terms and conditions of these platforms, we allow these companies to collect our data in exchange for access to their services. You do have control though, so stay ahead by:

• Set a reminder on your calendar to perform a checkup every few months
• Start with the most restrictive settings available and gradually open up if needed
• Make it a habit to read notifications about policy updates and platform changes when they’re emailed to you.
• Before hitting post, ask yourself, would I be comfortable if this content became public? Screenshots and screen recordings make it easy for others to redistribute your content, so always think twice before sharing.