Hide Recent Activity on Facebook
13 Dec
After some frustration and hundreds of clicks, I realize that facebook is no longer giving you the option to hide recent activity as a part of their new privacy settings. Not only is this really annoying, but it seems like a basic setting to give users of facebook. I joined a thread in the help section of facebook several days ago, but so far it’s just been complaining. Hopefully it’s something facebook will correct soon, because it’s annoying to display the recent activity on your wall.
Have you figured out how to do it? Got any other facebook tips?
Yeah I’ve been trying to do that as well but it says “Recent Activity. Anyone who can see the posts you create can see posts about you joining groups, adding friends, and so on. For example, if you only want friends to see your Wall, simply adjust the settings for both “Posts by Friends” and “Posts by Me” to be “Only Friends.”". Moreover, some months ago i chose not to show my comments as recent activities, what if i wanted them back? This is really annoying.
I agree, I think it’s super annoying. I’ve read a few places that facebook is trying to make activity more visible in order to encourage even more interaction, but not giving users control over their own activity seems to be too heavy handed. If users can’t hide recent activity automatically, I guess we just have to go delete it all everytime.
yeah it’s fuckin lame how that shows up. Now I won’t “like” or comment on shit until they fix that garbage ass security update.
yes its realy realy annoying and i dont know what they were thinking. i think they are testing some thing
I just don’t know why they don’t give their users control over what is being posted. It just seems like such a simple fix.
I still haven’t heard anything about when they might fix it. Has anyone else heard anything?
Hm, I really consider leaving the Facebook…
i hate it too … argls.
considering finally leaving facebook
I just blocked my whole wall and will do so until Facebook changes these settings. So much for enhancing our privacy… they are taking privacy options away!
Not only am I pissed about this, but additionally, now stuff I didn’t even do is posting to my wall. For instance, I saw the story:
“Jeremy edited his Education Info, Hometown and Screen Name.” appear on my wall.
I didn’t change any of them, and they’re still the same as before… so I remove the story and viewed my profile again, and it’s back.
No, I don’t have a hacked profile… I work in IT security and know the tricks of the trade… just another freakin’ bug I can’t do anything about…
The first person who gets an answer gets a big high-fiver from me, no doubt.
We should all leave Facebook.
Does MySpace screw its users like this?
im thinking about leaving BookfACE as well, its really 2 eggs!!
Has anyone here submitted anything to Facebook? I wonder if enough people complained about not being able to hide recent activity on facebook, they might actually take this seriously…
I’m not 100% sure this is the solution, but go to Settings > Privacy Settings > Profile Information. From there if you want to hide when you comment, like, etc., scroll down to “Posts by me.” Click on where it says Only Friends or Friends of Friends, etc. and click Customize. Under ‘Make this visible to’ select Only Me. Hope this helps, and sorry if these directions weren’t terribly clear. It took me forever to figure this out. Thanks, Facebook.
I tried your fix for the problem Laura, but the only glitch is that it made my whole Wall disapear. It’s great if people catch my Status comments in their feed, but if they click on it or go to my Profile to see it, they are taken straight to the Info tab. No more Wall tab. I hope they come up with an option soon. Thanks!
I think I might have to leave as well.. They are giving up to much interaction. I might actually leave as well.
If facebook people do not fix this I am going to deactivate my account. Because I play a lot of games I get around 50-100 friend requests in a day. All my friends are complaining that I spam their home window. Even worse I feel like I am spamming myself. It sucks.
And I don’t want everybody to see what I wrote on some friend’s wall, photo or where ever. Instead of going forward in protecting peoples privacy they go backwards.
Strangely enough I still don’t see any group in facebook that want’s old settings for recent activities.
Pleas we have to do something. . this sucks!
I’m agree with Nate: complaint to facebook team!
I wrote a complaint this morning (in french), they gave me an answer but they seem to don’t understand what I want. Or they pretend to don’t understand…
If you write them, be clear :I want control on what is publish in my recent activity (or something like that…)
I told them that I will stop to use facebook if they don’t do anything about that because it’s jsut a jealousy trick for neglected friend! Until there, I told them that I will reduce my activity and the number of friend. Yeah, I tried to use Key-words…
Thanks for the update Bally. Let us know if you hear anything else.
At this point, I am sure that facebook is aware that no one can hide recent activity, but they must be trying to test something (probably thinking that the more recent activity people see, the more they’ll interact, etc). But if they notice that showing recent activity doesn’t change anything, and even that tons of people are manually deleting their recent activity, they might change their tune and allow people to hide their recent activity again. Any thoughts?
Guys, as I have never really had time to ‘live’ on FB up until this Xmas period, it was only yesterday that i noticed this ‘frustrating’ recent activity thing. Before I started to research it, like the above mentioned, I had noticed that if I manually deleted it, problem solved! BUT, after wondering if it was just MY wall I was deleting from I decided to log into my Girlfriends account where I noticed that not all my activity was deleted and some of it still showed up! I went back into my own account as a double check and not one event of recent activity was visible – all was deleted as I expected! Back into my Girls, and yup – still there! Maybe I did something wrong or maybe someone has the answer to this but just posting this to you guys erm… a warning I guess, just in case it is a bug.. Happy 2010 to you all.. G.
twitter doesn’t do this kind of bs to their users. blah, this sucks.
How do we contact the facebook team to complain about the recent activity baloney?
Hey Courtney, I think this link will work: http://www.facebook.com/help/suggestions.php. Great website by the way (True Northe), love the style, and a really impressive portfolio too. Great.
@Laura: That might work, but that would also hide A LOT of other stuff you probably want people to see. Like when you post new pics, videos, status updates, etc.
man, i had this all written out and lost it.
anyway, maybe this helps some out.. i went to privacy settings > profile info & saw this “note” from fb:
“Information about Recent Activity
Whether we display a story on your profile is now controlled by the privacy of the content itself, rather than an additional setting. For example, only people who can see both your Wall, and the Wall to which you posted would be able to see a story about you writing on a friend’s Wall. You cannot completely turn off recent activity stories anymore. However, if you want to remove a particular story that currently shows up, simply click the “Remove” button that appears to the right of the story after you move your mouse over it. Learn more about privacy here.”
here: http://www.facebook.com/privacy/explanation.php
if anyone here can now figure all this fb crap out i’d be very grateful!
i really do not like the fact that when i comment on my friends pictures or status updates, it shows up on my other friends live feed wall… none of us are even mutual friends. so why the heck are they posting what i am saying to other people & linking everyone to it?
NOT COOL.
yeah I think removing the option to hide recent activity is a violation of privacy. They need to change that back asap.
I can’t really add anything that hasn’t already been said… but I will reiterate that Facebook needs to get its act together.
someone should link this forum in facebook. Nothing really bothered me much about FB until this. oh, the fact that when some people are tagged and you find yourself browsing photos of people you never met is kinda violating too.
get it together FB we see what you’re doing.
What’s even more disturbing is Facebook is starting to use private pictures that you post in various Facebook Ads without permission. The “new” Facebook also doesn’t allow you to control privacy settings regarding your recent activity. So anytime you post on someone’s wall or join a group or RSVP to some event it is posted on your wall for everyone to see. If they start taking away users ability to control their privacy they will lose users.
Facebook is getting worse and worse. Try changing your privacy settings and then changing them back. I deleted all my posts so nothing would show on my profile and suddenly all my historic “recent activities” are showing up. Like every time I became friend of someone. It sucks bad. Im deactivating my account.
I just joined and already this is lame as shit. WTF.. How could the even think this is a good idea.
Anyway, a solution I found is that you can actually remove that stuff individually.
Scroll over it and you’ll see a “remove” button pop up.
took mine away.. of course Im still in the early stages of testing this facebook profile so…
But that seems to work. Frustrating to have to do this every time you do anything, but shiiiet. Better than letting that shit stay ther.e
Here is facebook’s official notice at the top of the settings page now:
“Information about Recent Activity
Whether we display a story on your profile is now controlled by the privacy of the content itself, rather than an additional setting. For example, only people who can see both your Wall, and the Wall to which you posted would be able to see a story about you writing on a friend’s Wall. You cannot completely turn off recent activity stories anymore. However, if you want to remove a particular story that currently shows up, simply click the “Remove” button that appears to the right of the story after you move your mouse over it. Learn more about privacy here.”
Lame!
There’s a solution for those who can use the Greasemonkey add-on.
Install Greasemonkey, then use one of these two scripts (they both pretty much do the same, with one being easier to configure which ones you want deleted):
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/68225
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/67751