K.I.S.S. Social Media

I hate to be a “Paranoid Pattie”, but I REALLY don’t like Facebook’s new Places “feature” on their Timeline wall.  They used to have it at the top of your wall just under the banner as shown below:   You could hide the map by trading places with another item (see boxes or tabs).  Recently the “powers that be” at Facebook have decided to move the map or “Places feature”; the item that shows anyone you share your Facebook account with where you have been, on your wall.  You can no longer hide your map.   While some of you may ask “what’s wrong with this?” alarms go off,  and my “spidy” senses tingle, because as a social media person, I keep my wall public, and I friend many more people than my close family and friends.  I don’t necessarily want every person I’ve friended on Facebook to know the exact area I live, or the areas I travel on a regular basis.  So if you are like me, (rather be safe than sorry) I’ve recorded a couple of videos and written a few pointers for you.  Below is a list of items I’ve discovered that will show what causes those “Places” to show on your Timeline map: 1) Foursquare posts:  Whether you share them to your Facebook wall or not, if you check-in on Foursquare and take a photo then take a separate photo and upload it to your Facebook wall, it will add it to your Places map. 2) Mobile photo uploads:  If you take a photo with your smartphone and upload it to your wall, it MAY add it to your wall.  It depends on your phone and which app you use when you take your photo.  I know when I used Instagram, it did not add those photos to my Facebook Places… but that may have been because I did not check that as a default setting when I installed it on my phone. 3) Tagged images: If someone tags you in a photo, you guessed it, you will be added to that location.  (You can change this setting under Privacy Settings.) There may be more ways you can be added to the Places map, these are ways I’ve found so far.  Below are ways I know you can remove yourself from the Places map and what you can do to keep yourself from re-appearing. 1) Remove the Foursquare app from Facebook.  I tried to have it just not post on my behalf, but that did not do the trick – I had to remove the app completely.  If you are unsure how to remove the app,  watch the video shown below: 2) Remove the mobile photo uploads:  There are a couple of ways you can do this, double-click the map locator until you see which post has the image(s) tied to the map, at which point you want to double-click the image again and delete each image.  If this does not work, you want to see which day the image is posted and delete it from that day on your Timeline. (see video) 3) Remove the tag from the photo: Locate the photo using the same steps above and remove the tag.  If you are unsure how to remove the tag, watch the video. I don’t know about you, but I’m beginning to think Mark Zuckerberg has been contracted by the government to use Facebook as tracking software because people so readily give their information, and this program posts what a normal person would consider personal and private information on a regular basis.  What do you think?

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