A few days ago, I received a message from a Facebook friend who was worried that his family members seem to be tracking his business deals through his Facebook posts.
I’m tired of certain friends and relatives monitoring my Facebook posts. I can’t even quit social media because my business relies heavily on Facebook. How can I hide my posts from all of my family?
Facebook gave users this particular feature a long time ago, but a lot of people don’t know about it. Some who have explored the platform to discover these privacy tools don’t fully know how to use them. To hide your Facebook posts from certain people, there are two different ways to do this:
- Using the audience selector
- Using Facebook lists
Both methods work great. However, using the audience selector tool is only ideal if you intend to hide your posts from about than five people, or ten people at most. This is because you need to type their names each time you make a post and from my experience, this isn’t always convenient.
Also read: My Paranoia Wouldn’t Let Me Use Facebook Quiz Apps And I Wasn’t Wrong
Using Facebook Lists, on the other hand, lets you create a huge reusable list where you input the names of families and friends you want to restrict certain Facebook posts from. You can have as many people on this list, and you don’t need to re-type their names everytime you intend to make a post. This is the method I personally recommend.
1. Hiding Facebook posts with the audience selector tool
As mentioned, this is only perfect if you intend to hide your posts from just a few people. The only problem is that you need to type their names each time you want to make a new post.
1. Before making a new post, click the audience selector tool and select Friends except…
2. Type the name of each of those friends and select one by one until you’re through. After that, click Save Changes and make your post.
Using the audience tool on the mobile app
1. While making a new post, tap the audience selector Friends except…
2. Type the name of each of those friends and select one by one until you’re through. After that, click Done and make your post.
2. Using Facebook lists
If you intend to create a reusable list, this is the better option. You only need to create the list once and you’re good to go. This feature doesn’t appear to be available on the mobile app, I was able to get it done only on the web version.
1. Check the left panel and click Friends Lists.
2. Go to Restricted.
3. At the top-right, Click Manage List > Edit List.
4. Click the button on the left and select Friends.
5. Now type the names of everyone you intend to add to this list and select them.
6. When you’re done, click Finish. This is the only time you’re going to need to do this.
7. With this done, be sure to select Friends using the audience selector the next time you write or post on Facebook or share a photo.
Any status update shared with friends is restricted from everyone on this Restricted list. However, they still get to see your public posts.