It is awfully amazing how easy it is to continue on viewing someone’s Facebook account even if you have been blocked!
In a world where “privacy” has become a major issue, especially on the web, acquiring information about a person who purposely chose to remove you from their account on a permanent basis should not be as simple as it actually is.
As you know, Traduzioniclick does a lot of research for its various customers, but also to enlighten its users on certain web or service related issues.
About 3 years ago, we blocked a certain individual from our Facebook account. Yet, we were often surprised to learn how much this specific person always knew about what we had been up to. Initially, we thought one of the “friends” we had in common must have been feeding him/her some information. Then, we quickly realized he/she had been monitoring our Facebook posts.
How is this even possible, one may ask? Well, we did some research and experiments of our own to find out:
• If your posts are public, they can end up on any other page if shared by friends or group members. This means the friends of your friends or page group members can also view and share them, but not only. By creating publically visible posts, you are also allowing “thirds” to share the information you posted since they are allowed to see them from other pages. For example, after you have blocked someone, that person can no longer find you in the name search. However, when this occurs, Facebook will give users the option to search for “posts from friends and groups.” Therefore, any post made or shared on any other page (whether of friends, groups or thirds) will still appear in the search field unless you have turned on the “friends only” function.
• Some individuals could get really creative and make up a new Facebook account under a different and fictitious name. This is not so difficult to accomplish since many of the email account services do not really check for the credibility of the data entered. In doing so, they can contact you by sending a friend’s request or just browse through your profile, visualizing everything you have made publically visible for failure to set your privacy settings to “private and friends only.” Another reason why it’s always best to only accept friendships you know well already.
How can you avoid this?
Well, you just need to seriously review your privacy settings by making sure the following 4 elements are not turned on to “public” or “everyone:”
-Who can see your future posts?
-Who can sand you friend requests?
-Who can look you up using the email address you provided?
-Who can look you up using the phone number you provided?
Then, you also need to make sure the setting is set on “NO” for “Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile?”
You have the right to protect your account, whether for personal or professional reasons, but remember that you are the only one who can actually do so. Facebook will not monitor and safeguard your privacy. So, please review all the privacy account settings before spilling your thoughts and memories onto your Facebook wall for the world to see! Because that is what is really happening!
