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?
There are two solutions:
1. manually delete all your posts
2. cancel your facebook account
2nd one seems a better solution.
I hate to join the proverbial choir…but, wow do I agree with all of this. That you cannot hide your activity online from the entire world is mind numbing – and in an every growing more ‘typical’ type of – behavior on the part of facebook. This is what happens when you get hundreds of millions of members, and then decide to do whatever you want.
Someone mentioned the FBI – it’s true, all law enforcement agencies will use facebook as investigative tools, a reference to something posted. Subpoenas are issued in these events to the ISP and/or facebook, who then provide logged times for the activity, verified for court. I don’t know how common, but it does hapen.
I don’t know if it’s about anybody spying…since fb can just report this type of statistical behavior, and any content they want on their site. The site TOS specifically states that, as long as you share it, or anybody else has shared what you shared…fb has full and complete rights to use it. So all this cloak-and-dagger doesn’t need to be cloaked, since using the site gives them permission anyway.
But again… when I’m commenting on “Ripped German Teens” or posting the comment “Three words – ooh la la” on some pruriently viewed photograph….I do not need the members of my Church group seeing that I’ve done so. And, given that “Harry” our Organ Player likes the same photo, but perhaps Reverend Smithy does not… it makes is awkward in probably the stupidest, most non-intuitive manner imaginable. My 2 cents.
I have this on my blog. Have a look: http://wp.me/p1wpQm-1i
Here is a blog post about how you can use the free Better Facebook browser extension to AUTOMATICALLY remove Recent Activity posts from your profile!
http://betterfacebook.net/blog/blog/2011/01/24/automatically-remove-recent-activity-from-your-facebook-profile/
Enjoy!
Click Account -> Privacy Settings
On the Choose your privacy settings page click Customise settings at the bottom.
Click Posts by me and the Custom
Within the Hide this from box add the people or group you don’t wish to see your Posts. This also hides Recent Activity.
It does make your profile look a little limited ut its all or nothing for me so i dont mind
What’s frustrating too, is that I never look at other people recent facebook activity, because I just don’t care. So why is that such a prominent feature? And especially on my own profile feed, when I’m trying to read what others have posted, and I just want to get rid of my recent facebook activity. It’s crazy!
@Tony, I don’t think I’ve ever heard about the FBI and local police using facebook. Where did you hear that?
Facebook is trying to make it easier for the FBI and local police to spy on you.
And now Facebook has changed the recent activity again, except for this change is much more annoying. Now, instead of it saying “Emily commented on (insert name here)’s status”, it actually POSTS THE MESSAGE you write. I.E. “Emily wrote ‘OO I love your new hair girl!’ on (insert name here)’s photo (and the word “photo” is, of course, linked to the photo of the person you made the comment about. I am SO PISSED. I wrote a letter to FB, not that it will do any good. It’s one thing to improve your website, ok I get that. Maybe make it more user friendly, more perks, etc. But to totally REMOVE the option for someone to hide their own personal life is nauseating. I don’t see where it’s anyone’s business what I say about my nephew’s first grade picture, or whatever. If I want to keep all of my actions private, I should have the OPTION TO DO IT. They can leave it how it is now for all I care, just give me the option to hide my junk if I choose to. For an organization that is so hell-bent on protecting people’s privacy, you’d think they would GET A CLUE!!!!!!
Interesting Frank. I also think it can make us look like we’re really busy or active, when really we’re just typing and clicking.
And I agree about the design of facebook, it’s way too busy. I’ve also started hiding and unfriending people that I don’t actually care to keep up with, and that’s made it much more enjoyable to check in once in a while
Yes it’s ridiculous.
I don’t want to see who has become friends of a friend or has posted a witty comment about some MP3 they have just heard…this whole ‘look what she or he has just done or said’ is not my thing. Not only, it tends to make my stomach turn.
Maybe I really don’t get it at all, but just looking at the opening page makes me want to sign out rightaway.
I can’t understand why these settings do not exist. Perhaps this entire FB practice of controlling what you can or cannot see is a central part of the overall ethos of a delusional idea of social control or rather personal self-aggrandising, with the likes of how many friends you have, who is talking to who and look at this party picture of me having the time of my life…
It’s not possible they are so short-minded to restrict that essential privacy setting!!!
What the heck is wrong with Facebook not letting people control their most basic privacy rights?!
Even when I click on “Remove” next to my recent activity on my wall, shit still show up on my friend’s homepage !! The “Remove” button deletes stuff only from your wall. This is bullshit.
So even the greasemonkey script won’t fix this.
We need to do something about this. I don’t want people seeing every goddamn comment I post.
hmm… interesting question Anelisa. I’m not sure. I’ve also noticed that things show up really randomly. Seems like recent activity shows up a day later sometimes. I wonder if facebook does that so that people can’t immediately go and ‘hide’ recent activity?
I’m having the opposite problem. I sometimes refer friends to check out something I commented on — come to find out virtually NONE of my Recent Activity is appearing on my wall! Once every couple weeks some arbitrarily chosen (apparently) recent activity appears. WTH?
Looked everywhere, no one seems to know how to fix this! I know how to HIDE individual recent activities. Does anyone know how to make them SHOW?
Oops… I meant the *second* Greasemonkey script
@john: Thank you for the Greasemonkey script links! The first one works like a charm – it’s great to have a button that removes ALL my recent activity from my wall!
Yeah Facebook really needs to let users choose whether or not to auto post recent activity to their wall because everytime i comment any girl saying shes cute, my girlfriend is updated and i get my ass kicked. seriously facebook, people are going to start deleting their pages unless they feel more in control. and the no html embedding rule for fb wall is the stupidest shit idea i ever heard
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
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!
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
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.
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.
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.
I can’t really add anything that hasn’t already been said… but I will reiterate that Facebook needs to get its act together.
yeah I think removing the option to hide recent activity is a violation of privacy. They need to change that back asap.
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.
@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.
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.
How do we contact the facebook team to complain about the recent activity baloney?
twitter doesn’t do this kind of bs to their users. blah, this sucks.
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.
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?
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…
Pleas we have to do something. . this sucks!
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.
I think I might have to leave as well.. They are giving up to much interaction. I might actually leave as well.
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’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.
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…
im thinking about leaving BookfACE as well, its really 2 eggs!!
We should all leave Facebook.
Does MySpace screw its users like this?
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.
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!
i hate it too … argls.
considering finally leaving facebook
Hm, I really consider leaving the Facebook…
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?
yes its realy realy annoying and i dont know what they were thinking. i think they are testing some thing
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.
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 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.