The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Privacy Settings
4. News Feed and Wall Settings
Back to the Settings —> Privacy Settings page, select “News Feed and Wall.” This is the section of Facebook’s privacy options with which I am most disappointed. I wish that users could apply more specific permissions to various friends and friend lists regarding their News Feeds and Walls. I am especially disappointed with this because of Facebook’s recent redesign: in this new design, Facebook plops all of our activity in one simple, text-based News Feed. I don’t necessarily want all of my Wall Posts to appear there, but I don’t have the ability to choose anything more specific. For now, we must settle with one group of preferences for all friends.
Most people remove many of these activities from their News Feeds and Walls, but I prefer to allow most of them to post notifications. I only do this to avoid becoming a boring friend. I don’t show every action that I perform on Facebook (otherwise my friends would hate me), but I like to remain public about most of my activity.
The “Social Ads” tab confirms your participation in the ads Facebook shows on the right sidebar on the home page. You cannot remove these ads from your home page, but this feature confirms your willingness to have your name shown in certain ads targeted to your friends. I couldn’t find an example, but occasionally Facebook will insert your name in an ad in the “Highlights” box. It’s harmless, really, and I think it is generous of Facebook to allow you to remove your appearance in these ads since it has little effect on you.
Next page: Step 5: Application Settings