Facebook has revolutionised human interaction, and has opened up a world of social networking. While the social network is a fantastic tool, it can prove to be dangerous for those users who are not careful about protecting their profile. You need to know how to check who has viewed your Facebook profile, to ensure you stay safe.
Facebook allows users to customise their security settings. Users can choose whether they want everyone to view their profile, only their photos and status updates or nothing at all. They could also elect for only their nominated friends to view their profile, which potentially protects them from weirdo’s and stalkers out there. It is recommended that users apply some security settings to their profile, even if they allow all Facebook to view their pictures, they should not allow everyone to view their contact details etc.
Status Updates
Allowing everyone to see your status updates can be dodgy. In recent years there have been many cases of house break-ins and such, based on people updating their status about weekends away, being out of town on business and the like. Potential criminals trawling Facebook come across such updates, and suddenly have an easy way into your apartment, even if they are uninvited. Be very careful, if you don’t have any security settings on your status updates, not to post updates like “Husband away for the weekend and lock on the front door is broken”, or “working late all alone at the office tonight”. Updates like this make you a sitting duck.
Employers are more and more viewing potential employees Facebook statuses to understand what type of person they are really hiring. Having pictures of you drunk and dancing topless on a bar last Saturday night will probably not go down too well, unless perhaps you are applying for a job as a stripper. Employers will also view your profile to get a feeling of what type of worker you are. Having a Facebook page filled with updates about how much you hate your job, your colleagues and your boss will not help your chances of being hired.
Facebook now has plenty of applications allowing you to see who has viewed your profile. These applications seem great, as we are all curious about who has checked out our Facebook profile. The reality, however, is that a lot of these applications end up as viruses, posting strange updates to everyone in your friend list.
The best thing to do is to make sure that:
a) your profile, pictures and updates are not available to every stranger on Facebook, and that
b) you are not posting details so intimate and private that they could endanger your safety.
This way, you will not constantly have to worry about who has viewed your Facebook profile.