The switches that matter
Every platform arranges its settings differently, but the same controls exist nearly everywhere. Work through them in one sitting.
- Set the default audience for future posts to friends or followers you have approved.
- Use the bulk control that limits the audience of past posts, since old public posts stay public until you change them.
- Decide who can look you up by your phone number or email address, and set it to nobody if that is offered.
- Turn on review for tags, so that other people's photos of you wait for your approval before they appear on your profile.
- Hide your friends list, which is what impersonators use to find targets for cloned accounts.
- Switch off the option that lets search engines index your profile.
- Review the list of outside apps and sites connected to the account, and remove everything you do not recognize or no longer use.
See what a stranger sees
Settings are only a theory until you test them. Many platforms offer a view-as-public feature. Where they do not, open a private browser window, stay logged out, and look yourself up. Whatever appears there is what a landlord, a date or a stranger sees, and a profile picture, cover photo and username are generally public no matter what you choose.
What leaks without a caption
The post itself is often harmless and the detail in it is not. A photo can carry its location in the file data or in the tag you added out of habit. Backgrounds give away house numbers, school uniforms, work badges, boarding passes and the view from your window. Vacation photos posted in real time announce an empty home, so post them when you are back. A full birth date is one of the pieces needed to impersonate you, and showing the day without the year loses nothing. Those cheerful quizzes about your first car and the street you grew up on are collecting answers to security questions.
Accounts you have forgotten
Old profiles on platforms you abandoned years ago are still public and are still protected by the password you used at nineteen. Log in, download anything you want to keep, and delete the account properly. Deactivation only hides it, and deletion usually takes a waiting period of about thirty days to complete.
Tip Put the privacy review on your calendar for the same week each year, and do an extra pass whenever a platform announces a redesign or a big new feature. That is when defaults tend to move.
