How to hide who you became friends with on facebook

How to Make New Friendships Invisible on Facebook | Small Business

By Naomi Bolton

The registration and account security section of the Facebook terms and conditions states that you are not allowed to create more than one personal account. This means that you are not able to maintain multiple accounts to interact with friends, family and business associates separately. There is, however, a way to separate your business and personal acquaintances on Facebook through the use of lists and privacy settings. This allows you to hide certain aspects on your timeline, such as your friend list and new friendships, from people not authorized to view them.

Making New Friendships Invisible To Everyone

Navigate to the Facebook website and log in to your account.
Hover your mouse cursor over the "Friends" link and click "More."
Click "See All Friends" and then click the "Edit" button.
Click "Only Me" from the "Who can see your full friends list on your timeline" section. Any new as well as past friend requests that you accept will no longer appear on your timeline. Nobody will be able to see your friend lists either, making all friendships invisible except to yourself.

Making New Friendships Invisible To Selected People

Navigate to the Facebook website and log in to your account.
Hover your mouse cursor over the "Friends" link and then click "More."
Click "See All Friends" and then click "Create List."
Enter a name for the list, for example "Colleagues" or "Family." Enter the names of the people you want to add to the list in the "Members" section and click "Create."
Click "See All Friends" and then click the "Edit" button.
Click "Custom" from the "Who can see your full friends list on your timeline" section that opens.
Select "Specific People or Lists" from the "Make this visible to" section and then select the list that you created. Only the people on this list will be able to see your friend list and new friendships while it remains invisible to everyone else. Alternatively, select "Friends" from the "Make this visible to" section and then select the list that you created from the "Hide this from" section. This will make the new friendships invisible to everyone on the list that you created.
Click "Save Changes" to commit to the changes that you have made.

References

Facebook: Lists for Friends
Facebook: What Does the "Only Me" Privacy Option Mean?
Facebook: How to Share Links and Other Content

Resources

Facebook: Statement of Rights and Responsibilities

Writer Bio

Virtually growing up in a computer repair shop, Naomi Bolton has held a passion for as long as she can remember. After earning a diploma through a four year course in graphic design from Cibap College, Bolton launched her own photography business. Her work has been featured on Blinklist, Gameramble and many others.

How can I keep my Facebook friends from being notified when I add a new friend?

Posted on September 15, 2019

1.9k

Question from Dennis J.: Hi Rick. I have a quick question about Facebook and I’m hoping you can answer it for me.

Is there any way to keep my Facebook friends from being notified when I add a new friend? Some of them get jealous when I add certain people.

If you can tell me how to prevent the new friend notifications from being sent out I’ll appreciate it more than you know.

Rick’s answer: You can indeed mute those notifications Dennis, and it’s very easy to do. Follow these steps to prevent your Facebook friends from being notified whenever you add a new friend:

Note: The steps below must be completed while using Facebook in a web browser on a laptop or desktop computer.

For whatever reason there doesn’t seem to be a way to change this setting in the mobile app. However, once you change it on a computer it will carry over to the mobile app as well.

1 – Log into your Facebook account and click on your name to display your Timeline page.

2 – Click the Activity Log button.

3 – In the left-hand column, click the More link that’s located directly underneath the Comments link.

4 – Click the Friends link (up near the top of the left-hand column) and then click Added Friends.

5 – At the top of the page you’ll find a line labeled “Who can see your friend list?” There are three icons on that line. Click the middle icon (the one located between the lock and the magnifying glass).

6 – Uncheck the box beside New Friend Reports, then click OK.

That’s all there is to it Dennis. Your Facebook friends will no longer be notified when you add someone new to your friend list.

Note: Even though your friends will no longer receive “New Friend” notifications, they’ll still be able to look at your friends list to see who you are friends with. If you want, you can hide your friends list altogether by following the steps listed in this post.

Bonus tip #1: This post explains how to lock down your Facebook account to prevent hackers from breaking into it.

Bonus tip #2: Want to make sure you never miss one of my tips? Click here to join my Rick’s Tech Tips Facebook Group!

If Facebook isn’t your cup of tea, I invite you to sign up for my Rick’s Daily Tips Daily Update Newsletter.

Want to ask Rick a tech question? Click here and send it in!

If you found this post useful, would you mind helping me out by sharing it? Just click one of the handy social media sharing buttons below.

1.9k

How do I control who can see my Facebook friends list?

Help Center

Account Management

Facebook Names

We're updating the mobile version of Facebook.com. More

By default, the Friends section of your profile is public, that is, everyone can see the list of your friends.

Configuring access to your friends list

Classic version for mobile browser

Click the icon in the upper right corner of the Facebook window.

Scroll down and click Settings.

Scroll to the Audience & Visibility section and select How can I find and contact you.

Click Who can see your friends list?

Select the audience of people (for example, Friends) to whom you want to grant access to the friends list.

New version for mobile browser

Click the icon in the upper right corner of the Facebook window.

Select Settings.

Scroll down to the Privacy section and click Privacy Settings.

Click Who can see your friends list? See How can I find and contact you.

Select the audience of people (for example, Friends) to whom you want to grant access to the friends list.

Notes

You can only access your own friends list. Your friends can also manage access to their friend lists.

For example, if you select Only me, only you will see the full list of friends on your profile. However, if your friend has made their list public, other people will see you on their profile.

If your friend has made their list public, information about your friendship may appear in News Feed, search results, and other places on Facebook.

People can see your mutual friends on your profile.

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How to “Fare out” with someone on Facebook and hide it from updates to your status

The very nature of Facebook means it's not the place to hang out if you really value your privacy.

Unlock your free "Facebook Security Checklist" now!

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Read our privacy policy

Even if you spend time setting up all the possible settings for deleting old friends. remove friends from remove friends from and refine your Like list.

The places you've been, the gadgets you've used to access the service, and the people you're friends with can still be used by Facebook to create an advertising profile for you .

However, if you are more concerned about the privacy of your colleagues than what a few multinational corporations may or may not know about you, there are several steps you can take. One such step is to hide your new connections from the wall, status updates and news feed.

In this article we are going to explain the process.

Why hide data?

The implications for privacy are clear. You don't necessarily want the world to know that you've befriended your boss or your old flame from high school.

But there is a less obvious reason.

If you've been a Facebook user since the beginning of the company's growth, you'll know that the News Feed is almost unrecognizable from the way it looked ten years ago.

And I'm talking not only about the interface, about the content of the channel. also changed dramatically. It no longer features updates such as "John eats fish for dinner" and "Sarah is going to work on the bus". In fact, it's rare to see anything like this in your main feed these days; people don't care.

Therefore, if you are a serial "friend", terminate your existing connections. They don't want their cat videos to be interrupted by the news of your tenth new acquaintance in the last week.

Use Activity Log

As a general rule, Facebook has made the process of making changes neither easy nor obvious. It doesn't want you to hide anything. The more you share, the more money the company makes (you know, Zuckerberg has a share price).

To hide new connections from your channel, you need to go to the activity log. To access it, open your profile page and click View activity log .

As you already know, in the activity log you can control the content that appears on your wall and in the channels of your friends. When used correctly, you can make it filter just about anything; nothing related to you will live without your blessing.

Sounds great, but it's not immediately clear how to manage data in large quantities. Of course, you can delete entries on a case-by-case basis. But this is neither efficient nor practical when dealing with hundreds of updates.

Fortunately, there is a better way.

Use filters

In the left column you can see the list of filters. Use them to filter activity log data for a specific post type. For example, you can simply view the posts you like or the photos you've been tagged in.

But where is the list of friends?

You need to click on the link " Extras" under comments (not " More details under all applications" ). Now you will see a much expanded list. Choose friends .

Okay, now you can see a list of all the people you've made friends with. But there is still no obvious way to prevent new friends from getting into your existing friends' feeds (I told you the process was confusing!).

To edit data that is made public, you need to turn your attention to the top of the screen. In particular, you need to find three icons in the page title. Click on the one that looks a bit like a speech bubble.

You will see four options: Highlights and Other Stories , Recent Activity , New Friends Reports and Friends Lists . These are the places where new acquaintances will be published. You can customize them however you see fit. Unfortunately, you can't customize your friend lists. For maximum privacy, disable the other three.

recap

I know this might be a little confusing, so here's a quick recap.

Open activity log
Click on More in the filter list
Click on friends
Open Friend activity can be displayed in the menu
Turn off highlights and other stories, recent activities, and new friend reports

Let's move on

Good. Now your new friends won't show up in the public feed, but anyone who really wants to track your private life can still follow your new friends by looking at your friends list.

For maximum security, you should make it private.

Open the settings menu of your Facebook account by expanding the drop-down menu in the top right corner and selecting Settings .

In the panel on the left side of the screen, select Privacy . In the main window, you need to find the option Who can see my friends list? ,

Click Edit then expand the drop down menu. You can choose Public , Friends or Only me .