Table of Contents
Why Social Media Privacy Matters
Social media platforms are designed to encourage sharing. But every post, like, comment, and connection reveals personal information that can be used for targeted advertising, social engineering attacks, identity theft, or stalking. Taking 15 minutes to audit your privacy settings is one of the best investments in your digital security.
Facebook / Meta
Facebook collects more data than almost any other platform. Here is what to change:
- Profile visibility — Settings > Privacy > "Who can see your future posts?" Set to "Friends"
- Friend list — Make it visible to "Only me" to prevent social engineering
- Search engines — Disable "Allow search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile"
- Face recognition — Turn off in Settings > Face Recognition
- Off-Facebook activity — Clear and disconnect your off-Facebook activity history
- Ad preferences — Review and remove interest categories. Disable ads based on partner data
- Two-factor authentication — Enable with an authenticator app, not SMS
- Login alerts — Enable notifications for unrecognized logins
Owned by Meta, Instagram shares much of Facebook's data infrastructure.
- Private account — Settings > Privacy > Toggle "Private Account" on
- Activity status — Turn off "Show Activity Status" to hide when you are online
- Story sharing — Disable "Allow Sharing to Stories" and "Allow Sharing to Messages"
- Remove EXIF data — Use our Metadata Remover before uploading photos
- Connected apps — Review and remove third-party apps in Settings > Security > Apps and Websites
- Download your data — Periodically download and review what Instagram has collected
Twitter / X
- Protected tweets — Enable to require approval for new followers
- Discoverability — Disable "Let others find you by email" and "by phone number"
- Location — Turn off "Add location to your tweets" and delete location history
- Data sharing — Settings > Privacy > Disable "Personalized ads" and "Off-Twitter activity"
- Direct messages — Disable "Allow message requests from everyone"
- Two-factor authentication — Use an authenticator app
TikTok
- Private account — Settings > Privacy > Toggle on private account
- Suggest your account — Turn off all discovery options (phone contacts, Facebook friends)
- Who can send you messages — Set to "No one" or "Friends"
- Who can duet/stitch — Set to "Friends" or "No one"
- Download your data — Review what TikTok has collected regularly
- Ad personalization — Disable personalized ads in privacy settings
- Profile viewing mode — Settings > Visibility > Choose "Private mode"
- Email visibility — Make your email visible only to connections
- Activity broadcasts — Turn off "Share profile updates with your network" when job hunting
- Data privacy — Review advertising preferences and turn off data sharing with third parties
- Two-factor authentication — Enable in Settings > Sign In & Security
General Tips for All Platforms
- Audit permissions quarterly — Platforms change settings and add new data collection features regularly
- Use strong, unique passwords for each platform
- Think before posting — Once online, content is essentially permanent
- Review tagged photos — Enable approval for tags before they appear on your profile
- Limit personal info — Never include your phone number, address, or birthday in public profiles
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Written by
Raimundo Coelho
Cybersecurity specialist and technology professor with over 20 years of experience in IT. Graduated from Universidade Estácio de Sá. Writing practical guides to help you protect your data and stay safe in the digital world.
