Are you tired of your friends knowing about every group you’ve joined or every Facebook Page you’ve become a fan of? Do you want to RSVP for an event without your friends knowing that you are attending? Sometimes users just want to keep things private and after numerous emails in my inbox, I thought it would be useful to post a short guide on how to prevent Facebook from publishing stories about every single activity you make on the site. With the removal of news feed settings in December, many users have become confused about blocking information from their profile. This guide will tell you how!
Removal Of News Feed Settings
Before jumping into our guide, I thought it would be useful to discuss how published content through Facebook were previously handled. As we wrote in early December, Facebook previously had a privacy settings page which controlled those activities which generated news feed stories. [Note: For the purpose of this guide, "news feed" is synonymous with "stream".] With the launch of the new privacy settings, Facebook officially removed the news feed settings and as a result, many Facebook users became instantly confused about how to remove stories that they didn’t want their friends to know about. In this guide, we’ll clarify how you can prevent Facebook from posting every action you take on the site.
How To Block Recent Activity
The other big issue is how news feed stories are published every time you join a group or join a Facebook Page. While Pages that you join will always be public information, you can prevent stories from being generated which notify your friends that you recently became a fan. Unfortunately Facebook has removed the news feed settings from before, however you can still control the visibility of most content by modifying your privacy settings in conjunction with your application settings.
While we published the basic idea behind preventing embarrassing news feed stories in the article “How To Avoid A Facebook Photo Tagging Disaster“, we’ve created a short video to help you understand how to control those events, groups, photos, videos, and pages that generate feed stories. In short, by visiting the application settings page of those applications that are “Allowed to Post”, you can customize which applications, can or cannot post stories to your profile without prompting you first.
For example, if I no longer want my friends to be notified of new Facebook Page that I’ve joined, I can visit the application settings page linked in the last paragraph, and scroll down to where it says “Ads and Pages”. Next, click on “Edit Settings” and in the dialog box which pops up, click on “Additional Permissions”. You can then uncheck the box next to “Publish recent activity” if you don’t want your friends to be notified about new Facebook Pages that you have become a fan of.
In the video below, I’ll walk through how to prevent your friends from seeing events you’ve RSVPed to, how to block friends from being notified about images and videos you’ve been tagged in, and how to block friends from seeing groups you’ve joined.
Conclusion
After following the guide above you should now have more control over what information your friends can see. Keep in mind that whenever you comment on a friend’s status update, the visibility will be dictated by the privacy settings that your friend set for their status. If you really want to delete a story which notifies your friends of a post you’ve commented on, you can scroll down to the “Recent Activities” of your profile feed and click on remove next to the story about your comment as pictured in the image below.
As you’ll notice, we didn’t include a guide about controlling the visibility of wall post stories under “Recent Activities”. That’s because wall posts are visible to your friends by default. Tomorrow we will post a guide which should help you more thoroughly understand the visibility of wall posts. For now, you should have greater control over which Facebook activities post stories to your profile!
Thanks for these explanations, Nick. But the majority of my recent activity posts is about likes and comments. Before the recent privacy update you could define visibility settings of these posts. Has this option gone completely now or am I just not able to find the setting?
Comment by Annette Schwindt — January 6, 2010 @ 6:28 am
Hmmm, is it me or I cannot find "Ads and Pages"? I watched the video and I was to that place but it's not there. That's really strange.
Comment by Aaron Hall — January 6, 2010 @ 6:32 am
Help. I don't see "Ads and Pages" on the Application Settings page. I looked under "Allowed to Post".
Comment by Kelly Shane Pickell — January 6, 2010 @ 8:06 am
I don't see the “Ads and Pages” either…
Comment by Facebook User — January 6, 2010 @ 8:09 am
The new settings are horrible and confusing! When the changes first happened in December, I went into all my settings and took anything off of "everybody" and changed it "network and friends". Just yesterday, I went into those same settings to check something, changed a few to "only friends". When I checked the preview of what I'd done, I didn't like it, so went to go change it back to what I'd set it to just a few weeks ago and I couldn't!! The "network and friends" setting was completely gone, and so I had no choice but to leave it at "only friends".
So thanks for this article. I will certainly be going thru it step by step and see what I can do. Now if only there was some way to stop everything I say being shown on Google!!
Comment by Facebook User — January 6, 2010 @ 8:13 am
This is really helpful, thanks.
I don't appear to have an Ads and Pages application link though, and i checked through all the drop downs. Do you know why?
Comment by Jen Parker — January 6, 2010 @ 8:15 am
Thanks, that was really helpful!
Now if we can figure out how to block the add a friend, commented on a friends status and prevent our picture albums from going public to their friends stream when someone comments on them…….I will be a happy FB camper again.
Comment by Sherry — January 6, 2010 @ 8:16 am
Removing History doesn't work, try
the story disappear from your wall but is still shown on your friends news…
FB did the worst privacy change last month, it broke many Privacy settings, and there are many informations meant to be private that are now visible…
check this group, it explains very well what the privacy problems are:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=44310011336
Comment by Iacopo Cappelli — January 6, 2010 @ 8:24 am
If you can't find Ads & Pages, watch the video.
From the top blue menu, click:
Settings > Application Settings > Show: Authorized (from the drop-down menu at right).
You'll see Ads & Pages at the top of that list.
Comment by hundredaire — January 6, 2010 @ 8:24 am
thank you for this helpful post.
what about comments, likes etc.? is there any way to prevent facebook from posting those activities in feeds and profiles as well?
Comment by Q-BEE — January 6, 2010 @ 7:24 am
I still would like to remove from my stream every notification of added friends, which doesn't seem possible anymore.
Comment by Facebook User — January 6, 2010 @ 8:25 am
Edit:
I found out that you will only see "Ads and Pages" in your list of Applications if you've created a fan Page or created an Ad. Otherwise you won't see it.
Go here to the application page: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=6...
And after you create a fake Page then you'll see the Ads And Pages option in your list of Applications and can modify the settings.
The vast majority of users who have never created an Ad or a Page won't see this setting.
Comment by Kelly Shane Pickell — January 6, 2010 @ 8:39 am
Nope. I don't think this works.
I "unticked" "publish to streams" on Groups – and it still published a comment on my wall that I made in a group.
Has anyone actually tested it and seen it work yet? I see lots of people commenting but no-one saying – "Yes it works?"
Paul
Comment by Paul Flanagan — January 6, 2010 @ 10:05 am
Thanks Nick but it doesn't work unfortunately. Even more annoying is the fact that comments and who we have befriended are broadcast in the news feed, and that when we write on walls the posts appear in mutual friends' news feeds; I hope Facebook fix these issues.
Comment by Vanessa — January 6, 2010 @ 11:39 am
Great post! I was aware of these options, but only because I dug through them as best as I could figure. The new privacy settings options have been so diluted that these settings are not readily obvious and I found them through sheer determination. Now if we could only stop the newly added friends, comments on other’s walls and photos, etc. from showing up, that would be fantastic! Frankly, I would love if they would just offer the old settings again.
Comment by Lisa Duhamel — January 6, 2010 @ 11:10 am
Great article! Very informative and useful.
Comment by Azhar — January 6, 2010 @ 11:39 am
Question. If you uncheck publish to streams for photos, you mentioned that tagged photos will not publish. But what about other photo activity? I want my own uploaded photos to still show up.
Comment by interfacingproblemos — January 6, 2010 @ 12:06 pm
Edit 2: So I removed the setting to allow Ads and Pages to post, and joined a Fan Page and it still shows up in my recent activity.
Solution not yet found.
Comment by Kelly Shane Pickell — January 6, 2010 @ 12:43 pm
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.
Comment by Kris — January 6, 2010 @ 4:25 pm
@Kris Removing a story doesn't work, try
You delete the story from your profile, but a friend can still see it in his newsfeed and it stay there for days…
Comment by Iacopo Cappelli — January 6, 2010 @ 10:27 pm
It's worth pointing out that you can hide all recent activity stories from your profile (though not from your friends' feeds) by setting your default privacy for posts to anything other than "everyone". This hides your wall from randoms altogether.
Nick, I read on the developers' blog that applications were going to be stopped from publishing recent activity to profiles, and would only be able to publish full status-like stream stories; is that right?
Comment by Rav Casley Gera — January 7, 2010 @ 4:03 am
How do I stop Facebook from publishing recent activity to my friends news feeds & my profile when I:
1. Click on "like" – on a friends status
2. Comment on a friends status
3. Write on a friends wall
(I don't mind friends reading what I have written but I don't want them to be prompted when I do)
I just don't want my friends reading my current activity! Is this possible?
Comment by Kerry — January 7, 2010 @ 7:23 am
A big THANK YOU for this information!
Comment by Marita Rahlenbeck — January 7, 2010 @ 10:49 am
this post is worthless. you're not even answering the question that you posed for yourself!!! how do we delete recent activity such as when you write on friends walls, become friends with someone, etc. HOW???? everyone knows you can click "remove," but how do you actually not have it show up in the first place? it's a pain always having to check.
Comment by not useful — January 7, 2010 @ 10:52 am
DOESN'T WORK ON COMMENTS, LIKES, ETC….
Mine has been unchecked since this changed launched… it does not remove the "Recent Activity". We should not have to "simply" hit the remove button back on our wall everytime we click or comment. Yes, this step removed groups… but when I comment on a group… as sure as the sun will rise, it is plastered to my wall.
What people do not realize is by their advertising your every move on your wall it is providing a link to your comments to friends that other friends may not be friends with.
Facebook is so UNENJOYBLE now… I keep looking online for solutions to this problem. Have emailed and complained to FB a million times over. Does not matter what your privacy settings are… everything is being fed to your wall or the news feed. Very Unprivate unlike it was before they made the change.
Sure we could set our setting so no one sees our wall, but then what would be the purpose of FB…
Comment by drs — January 7, 2010 @ 11:56 am
Unfortunately, your advice did not work. I followed your suggestions, but everything I did (like, e.g. become a fan of a page) still showed up like before, as recent activities.
Facebook has become a much less attractive place to communicate with friends. Actually, the worst part of it is the feeling of betrayal. A lot of people have been using this system for a long time, in the good faith that Facebook would stand firmly behind its own privacy statement. The last weeks' lesson is very clear: They do not. Weakening user privacy in such a fundamental way, and even actively encouraging users to lower their own privacy settings additionally, is an assault on its own users, the way I see it.
It reminds me of the shock it was to many when Deja Vu (later acquired by Google) suddenly indexed all the billions of old Usenet posts, making them available to the general public. Usenet was a very dynamic playground created long before the search engines, and had a huge number of users who never had a worry on their mind that what they posted, would some day be index and made public. Imagine their shock 10 years later, when exactly that happened.
Now, we know for sure that Facebook is not reliable in privacy matters. They change the rules whenever they want. Data previously believed to be private (like friends lists, pages associations, etc.) has suddenly become public, creating embarassment for many, and life-threatening danger to others (e.g., members of the opposition in totalitarian countries). Does Facebook care? Of course not. If they did, they would not have done this.
In addition to this comes the huge number of "friendly" applications systematically harvesting user data for unknown purposes. That is right, you do not even need security holes to access personal data. You just create an application, and harvest whatever you would like to have. With Facebook's blessing and encouragement. Or so it seems.
I would like to thank you for an interesting blog with a lot of excellent posts. What I miss here, however, is a little more "edge", a more critical attitude. In system terms, Facebook is not a democracy, but more like a dictatorship. With its huge user base it is like a omnipotent, but unpredictable and distant, government changing its own laws at will. I think this government might need a few strong and clever system critics who put these issues on the map, making them visible and understandable to the big audience–who already have a choice, but needs to know the difference…
Kris
Comment by Kris — January 7, 2010 @ 3:09 pm
my point exactly. i dont want people to know i commented or liked status/pix etc. it makes me not what to partake in facebook anymore…
Comment by vuesociety — January 7, 2010 @ 9:05 pm
vimeo has emerged as a major player in the online video market. i never would have thought this 4 years ago…
Comment by fooyah — January 8, 2010 @ 2:42 am
These new privacy settings are unacceptable. Why the change? Does this have something to do with Facebook trying to use our profiles, comments, etc. to become more susceptible to advertising? I say Boo..
Comment by Stephen — January 8, 2010 @ 5:18 am
What!? I want to stop it from showing whenever I like something or comment on something. Deleting all of these stories manually is tedious! Gah.
Comment by Jake — January 8, 2010 @ 7:13 am
i think the only way we can teach facebook a lesson is by stop using i.e liking,commenting or sending wall posts all together. Ofcourse we can still use the inbox. Hopefully facebook will notice low traffic and set things right !
Comment by zeenia — January 8, 2010 @ 12:46 pm
I didn't have "Ads and Pages" in mine either…. If you can't find the "ads and pages" copy/paste this link. http://www.facebook.com/editapps.php?v=feed
I saw this link in his screen on his video.
Thanks for the tips.
Comment by Facebook User — January 9, 2010 @ 4:51 am
I would like for comments that other people post on my photos to automatically post to my Profile page. Does anyone know how to change the setting to allow those comments?
Also, I am not happy that some of the gifts from people are automatically posting to my profile. Is there a way to stop this?
Comment by Leslye — January 9, 2010 @ 11:09 am
this sucks! it doesnt matter if i remove the story from my wall on recent activities whenever i post on someone elses wall, it still appears on my friends feed even if those friends arent in each others list. major blunder facebook!
Comment by luis — January 10, 2010 @ 3:27 am
Thanks for trying but it still doesn't solve the main issue – that Facebook has taken away our ability to block ALL recent activity. I don't want my friends to know what comments I've made on other friend's walls, and now I have to manually delete each one. We ALL need to complain to Facebook and see if they'll give us that feature back! And I don't understand why they took it away!!!!!
Comment by binklebomb — January 10, 2010 @ 9:39 pm
It doesn't solve the main issue because Facebook signed a deal with Microsoft and Google's search engines to allow them to search our status updates:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/69...
Comment by wendy — January 11, 2010 @ 5:21 am
Just leave Facebook.. this 'recent activity' issue seems not going to be fixed in a near time…
Comment by abengjkt — January 11, 2010 @ 11:27 pm
Agree with many posters here – what I WANT to block is the recent activity postings of likes or comments on friend's walls or status updates. Please advise! Thanks.
Comment by Monica — January 12, 2010 @ 6:06 am
I think it's bs that everytime I post something to a friends' wall, our mutual friends can read everything on their newsfeed. We should have control over these privacy settings. Also, it's annoying that I have to "remove" everytime I comment on someone's status or "like" something. Why is Facebook set up so that everyone can see exactly who you communicate with down to the T? Why did Facebook change the privacy settings? It seems to be going back in time!!
Comment by lindsay — January 13, 2010 @ 6:37 am
I'm selling a domain name, FacebookManual.com if anyone can use it,just drop me an email with an offer!
Comment by LB — January 13, 2010 @ 7:42 am
I have been going to my wall to clean up all the recent activity tags it shoves on there. My experience has been, however, that sometimes those tags do not show up right away for me to remove. Sometimes it's several hours before it hits, then when I forget to go back. It is really a huge problem for those of us who use this professionally, for certain business relationships to be able to see who else I may be connecting with.
And I really don't need my boss to know that I just commented on the photo of my cousin's new baby.
Comment by Facebook User — January 14, 2010 @ 5:44 am
I tried this, became a fan of a page but unfortunately it didn't work and my friends still got a notification. I manage a page for young people with depression and it would be good if people could become a fan without Facebook telling all their friends about it.
Comment by tc — January 14, 2010 @ 5:58 am
what about Friends – (recently become friends)… how do u remove that from your stream/main page …?
Comment by granjula — January 15, 2010 @ 3:18 pm
So damnly useful!!!
I was just wondering wth the "Ads $ Pages" is
And I have tried so hard blocking the feeds.
Very awsome, thx!!
Comment by Robin — January 16, 2010 @ 1:42 am
After I finally found Ads and Pages and changed the setting I wrote on two webpages and it did NOT show up in my feed. That's good enough for me for right now if this continues. Between having everyone see where you go and what you do (Big Brother is surely watching), and making the wall so messy… This is a start. Thanks Nick and thanks to @MariSmith for giving us a heads up on this post. I will admit I had to read the comments to find the Ads and Pages settings. I could NOT find it and I DO have a Fan Page and have written on other Fan Pages.
Comment by Roz Fruchtman — January 16, 2010 @ 5:36 pm
I take it back… I logged out and came back and the one-line posts are back again! How can that be…
Comment by Roz Fruchtman — January 16, 2010 @ 6:08 pm
I would love to be able to find the edit ads and pages settings, it is not showing in my applications. Only at the bottom of the page
Thanks
Suzie
PS great post
Comment by Suzie Cheel — January 17, 2010 @ 9:18 pm
I've tried this and it never worked for me. The only sure fire way seems to be to manually clean your wall.
Comment by Tracey Holinka — January 18, 2010 @ 6:58 am
So far it looks like it worked for me. Thank you very much, this was very helpful.
Now, how in the world do you hide your friend list from your friends?
How to you stop FB from suggesting your friends to other friends?
These new setting are RIDICULOUS!!!
Comment by Max R. — January 19, 2010 @ 7:08 am
NEVERMIND…did NOT work, its still publishes who you became friends with and all your activities, total junk. FB can kiss my @$$
Comment by Max R. — January 20, 2010 @ 4:37 am
Mine was already unchecked and it still posts. I actually removed Ads and Pages application and the Ads and Pages still show up.
If you can't find the application in the drop-down select Authorized instead of Recently Used.
Comment by Emms — January 20, 2010 @ 7:35 am
I read every comment here, did everything suggested except create a page, and I still can't find ads and pages.
Comment by Facebook User — January 24, 2010 @ 3:02 pm
THIS DOESN'T WORK!!!! Don't use it!!!
Comment by mad — January 25, 2010 @ 1:36 am
Hello all,
as far as I can tell the "Ads and Pages" only shows up when you have created either an Ad or a fan Page. If you have not then it will not show.
That said, it seems like (maybe I'm wrong) if you uncheck the "Publish Recent Activies" it will stop Facebook from publishing that you have created a Page and/or Ad but it won't stop it from telling everyone that you have become a fan of a "Page".
As of right now there doesn't seem to be ANY way to stop Facebook from publishing on your wall most of the information that is "public" to the group you have set it to show.
Comment by Mateo — January 28, 2010 @ 6:15 pm
FOR THOSE WHO CANNOT FIND "Ads & Pages"
-Go into Application Settings
-Click on the drop menu beside "Show:" at the top right of the screen
-Select Allow to Post
-Breathe.
Comment by Ron Hyena — January 28, 2010 @ 7:26 pm
As 29/1 it isnt there.
Comment by Mark — January 29, 2010 @ 9:06 am
Even if you manually delete the 'recent activities' from your profile, it STILL shows up in the NEWS FEED for EVERYONE to see. That is not privacy!!! I guess my only option is to stop interacting with my friends on Facebook.
Comment by Kathaleen — January 29, 2010 @ 1:32 pm
There's no ads&pages under Application Settings – Show (Allowed to Post)That's maybe because of the fact that Facebook doesn't allow to change this setting anymore:
"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 "
Comment by Deniz — January 30, 2010 @ 12:55 am
Thanks for this article – it's very helpful. Using the Remove link on older status messages does not seem to work. So I'm assuming that you need to remove it right away or it will end up getting aggregated into the feed. After which, you can't do anything about it. Is that correct?
FB really should have posted a page like this and tell us the repercussions of their changes BEFORE they updated the site. This is not the first time this has happened.
Comment by Cynthea — January 31, 2010 @ 4:27 am
to "Kris – January 7th, 2010 at 7:09 pm"
topic "facebook assaults its own users"
i fully agree with you. great post.
Comment by Elias — February 2, 2010 @ 9:30 pm
try this.. go to Settings–>Account Settings–>click on "Facebook Ads" tab–>go down and change"Show my social actions in Facebook Ads to" to "No one"–>save changes. Problem solved~
Comment by Kkao — February 3, 2010 @ 6:12 am
despite the fact of changing the settings, it STILL publishes the recent activity. I seriously have had it with facebook.
Comment by ceebee — February 5, 2010 @ 12:45 am
I would like to have Status Updates as my default when I log into Facebook.
For some reason it is now ‘news feed’ and I don’t like it but can’t seem to get the status updates back. Please advice
Comment by Carol Darge — February 5, 2010 @ 10:03 pm
Direct from facebook wall……
http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=777
**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. Provide feedback about this change here: http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=777#!/help/contact.php?show_form=ui_privacy
Comment by Facebook User — February 9, 2010 @ 7:05 pm
Apparently there is no way to block or hide from MY wall what everyone else is joining or becoming friends with???? I DON'T CARE WHO THEY ARE FRIENDS WITH. I don't know most of these people except to play games with. I have to scroll through pages on end of "who's friends with who", to find people I care about or notices from games that I play. Is there nothing I can do other than block individuals that are taking up the most space?
Comment by Janice Paulding Shaw — February 10, 2010 @ 4:04 pm
GREAT article!!
thnks!
It STILL publishes the recent activity!!
it RELLY sucks!!!
Comment by helen — February 11, 2010 @ 1:58 am
yahhh boyzz
Comment by jasper carrot — February 11, 2010 @ 6:29 am
Kris on Jan 7th is right. I second whoever said is a Great post!! I think we all enjoy community, but the cost in privacy is so great that we cannot really understand the implications. This is a violation to human rights. Soon will be an app that will measure how much your toilet paper has been used…and maybe there will be a 3d view available on Google Earth to double check its status.
write to the privacy Commissioner of Canada to thank for the collaboration on screwing us up.
Comment by Agni — February 11, 2010 @ 11:44 pm
Kkao – February 3rd, 2010 at 10:12 am
try this.. go to Settings–>Account Settings–>click on “Facebook Ads” tab–>go down and change”Show my social actions in Facebook Ads to” to “No one”–>save changes. Problem solved~
its true … solved
Comment by nuno — February 14, 2010 @ 7:42 am
Problem not solved by changing the Facebook Ad setting. This is ridiculous!
Comment by Erin — February 14, 2010 @ 9:38 pm
FUCK YOU FACEBOOK!
Comment by Scheme — February 17, 2010 @ 3:46 pm
one easy word thank you very much
Comment by ayoub — February 19, 2010 @ 3:36 pm
Here is the solution!!!!! Must have firefox as your browser:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/47...
Every time you visit your profile, you'll see the Recent activity postings start to disappear. You have to still visit your profile.. but it elminates you having to delete them all manually. Sweet sweeet app.
God bless
Comment by J Z — February 20, 2010 @ 12:43 pm
What a useless article. Thanks for nothing man, you really should re-write this whole thing because we all came here to find out how to get rid of this shit and all you did was give us a solution that isn't even a problem in the first place!
Comment by cheero — February 26, 2010 @ 7:51 am
Thx a lot, but due to FBs bullsh!t policy it works only partly, you’ll need the Firefox addon (thx JZ !)
Comment by Sulfur — March 5, 2010 @ 5:23 am
What's going wrong if there is no "ads and pages" to be found?
Comment by Eric Flak — March 6, 2010 @ 11:35 pm
Nevermind. Missed a few of those.
Still should probably re-write the article.
Comment by Eric Flak — March 6, 2010 @ 11:42 pm
But how about a “hide recent activity” privacy option like there USED to be???? My wall is an irrelevant mess of “commented on so & so status/wall/photo etc” and it is a GIANT pain to remove each post individually.
Privacy options should be that – many different options for the many different privacy levels people want.
Bring back the “hide recent activity” option & let users control their privacy!!!!
Comment by Marce — March 10, 2010 @ 8:17 am
This was VERY helpful thank you because when they changed it I couldn't find it for the life of me.
Thanks again
Shaneequa
Comment by Shaneequa — March 15, 2010 @ 6:20 pm
Sadly this doesn't do what I (and many others) were hoping for.
The best thing we can do at this point is to lobby for Facebook to bring back the "hide recent activity" function.
Oh well.
Comment by Jamie Clay — March 20, 2010 @ 9:07 am
so no conclusion?
Comment by AMR — March 20, 2010 @ 12:32 pm
So people ae not confused by these instuctions, as good ad they are for toher things they do not HELP for what most of you are looking for!
You can NOT control your recent activity in regards to when you comment, click on like, etc whether it be your friends photos, status updates, etc. Common friends or not, if the person you are commenting on has privacy settings as eveyone or friends of friends then a post will APPEAR in YOUR friends newsfeed, such as “Sue likes John Smith’s status or “Sue commented on John Smith’s photo” and that one will appear with the photo you commented on.
TO put it simply, EVEN if you DELETE your recent activity on YOUR wall it will appear in your friends newsfeed,and if not common friends, then depending on your friends privacy settings.
Comment by sue — March 23, 2010 @ 3:59 pm
I cannot believe this application!!!
Every time I want to modify my settings I notice that they changed the interface.
I don't want to publish a post whenever I approve someone as a fried!!
Where can I disable this type of post from?!?!
Comment by John — March 24, 2010 @ 5:04 am
Using Facebook Filter version 1.3.3 For Mozilla Firefox 3.0 – 3.5 – 3.6
I've try … successful Remove all Recent Activity
This download link
https: / / addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/47397
hopefully can help …
Comment by Ricky Marido — April 2, 2010 @ 2:04 pm
Hi,
I have changed most of the settings to off. And most things have stopped publishing to peoples news feeds. However when i confirm a friend it still gets shown on my friends News Feed. Another big problem is tagged pictures appearing in friends news feeds, but more so in the news feeds of people i have blocked from seeing photos of me.
I have a "Work Colleagues" group setup and have pretty much denied them from everything. But, if i give permission to the Photos application to "post content on my wall" so my real friends can see pics i publish or pics i'm tagged in then even though my "Work Colleagues" group is denied from seeing "photos and videos of me" and are denied from seeing all my photo albums i've posted, the tagged or published photos of me will show up on my "Work Colleagues" news feed. If i stop the photo application from posting to my wall then none of my friends can see my pictures.
So in effect, these normal privacy settings stop people from browsing your photos, but it doesn't stop them from seeing photo activity unless you block every one. It's all or nothing. To me that is a breach of the privacy i'm trying to set in my facbook information sharing.
I've looked through every setting i can find and even created a test account to see how certain settings affect what displays in the "test account" news feed and i can't find out how to turn it off for certain people. Any ideas how to stop tagged or published photos from appearing in a particular group or persons News Feed but show up in other peoples i want to allow?
Thanks
Comment by Ajay — April 2, 2010 @ 2:32 pm
I play a couple of the FB games and I know that a lot of my friends don't really care to see my activity on these applications.
I changed the settings "Control who can see your activity in the Friends' Recent Activity, Friends' Applications and Friends' Games sections of these pages" by going to —
PRIVACY SETTINGS -> APPLICATIONS AND WEBSITES -> ACTIVITY ON APPLICATONS AND GAMES DASHBOARDS and changed my setting from everyone to custom. I then went through and allowed only friends that play the same FB games to view these updates. This was a pretty labor intensive way to change my settings but I truly did not want family and church friends to see my posts on FarmVille. I hope this helps someone.
Comment by Jenny — April 6, 2010 @ 6:39 am
thank u very much..u really help me–stop publishing an application..tnx a lot..
Comment by princess — April 6, 2010 @ 9:56 am
Hi!
Have taken a few tips from here but really wish it could be a little more straight forward for us “hopeless with computers ppl”! Really wish there was a way to stop activities such as my comments on friends statuses or photos appearing on the news feed coz u dont necessarily want everyone to see them and alos I think it makes you lokk like you are always on fb!!
xx
Comment by sharon — April 8, 2010 @ 10:05 am
You are the man! It's been irking me for months on how to remove that!
Comment by Aaron — April 8, 2010 @ 12:25 pm
I had to go to Applications, then use the pull down menu to choose "Approved" and that's where I found "Ads and Pages" listed. Don't know if anyone had mentioned this before. Dont have time to read through all the comments. But.. there ya go
Comment by Henry Herman — April 16, 2010 @ 5:49 am
When requesting a new friend request,how can I stop those security words from coming up ? I'm having to enter them everytime……
Comment by imran — April 16, 2010 @ 8:33 pm
Does anyone else have a problem with their privacy settings-Apps and Websites-Only me? I want it to be 'only me' that can see this, and it just changes back to 'only friends' every time I refresh the screen.
Also privacy settings-friends, tags and connections..I can't seem to take my current location, home town, education and work, activities, interests etc off 'everyone'. I don't want 'everyone' to see these! Can anyone help?
Finally (phew!), 'my profile' is showing all the pages I am linked to, plus my profile picture. I only want this available to my friends. How can I do this?
Facebook has purposely made our privacy hard to protect, and this is despicable considering it has so many young users.
Comment by Dee — May 1, 2010 @ 1:27 pm
I am having the opposite problem. I can not see Recent Activiy on my friends or my own page. How do I undo this? Thanks!
Comment by Brianna Lahodik — May 3, 2010 @ 11:06 pm
Ads and pages is not showing up in this list. even when selecting "Allowed to post" in the view drop down, no dice. I would love to unclutter my wall from all the "recent activity" posts but I am getting no joy yet.
Comment by Andy — May 4, 2010 @ 6:01 am
Is there a more up to date version of this? It seems to me there is NO way to prevent comments on friends' posts, "likes", joining of groups, liking of pages, basically any "recent activity" at this time. It can be manually removed, but what good is that? I really am amazed they would take their attack on privacy this far.
Comment by EK — May 5, 2010 @ 4:18 am
PLEASE HELP. I HAVE BEEN trying to figure this out forever. I can no longer see the recent activity of any of my friends! i cant even see my own recent activity on my profile. how do i fix
Comment by phillip Lopez — May 8, 2010 @ 11:25 am
yea, this guide is outdated because recent activity still posts after using this method……
Comment by fd — May 8, 2010 @ 12:52 pm
Mark Zuckerberg you SUCk! Now my girlfriend reads EVERY POST I commented/liked on my other female friends and she was not happy now! Mark Zuckerberg do you know what PRIVACY IS????
Comment by Mark Suckerberg — May 11, 2010 @ 8:51 am
I don't care if my posts or likes show up on other peoples news feeds or anything like that, i am just sick of everything i do showing up on my own wall. I already know i did that! Get that shit off my wall! So annoying! Someone please lmk if they figure out how to remove the posts and likes from the recent activity that shows up on your own wall. Right now i have to do it every single times. It's like they are punishing the heavy users of facebook by clouding their wall so you can't even find your friends last post! They need to make it like the iphone app where all you see are legitimate posts and not all that bullshit!!
-Dan
Comment by dan the man — May 16, 2010 @ 4:45 pm
Please let me know if anyone figures out how to get rid of recent activity including when i write on someone's wall, comment on a status, like someone's status, etc without having to click REMOVE 50 times in 5 minutes. I don't want anyone to see what I do when visiting my profile.
Comment by Christina — May 19, 2010 @ 7:55 pm
It's incredibly annoying to see every comment I make on a group discussion board posted to my wall (thus also the main feed of my friends). Is there really no way to disable this??
Comment by Alex — May 24, 2010 @ 2:42 am
I unchecked show stories for all my applications and settings I believe, yet my friends can still see
RECENT ACTIVITY LISTINGS on my wall for:
1- weblinks I posted on other friends pages,
2- new friends added
3- comments added to other friends walls.
If I choose "remove" beside the recent activity listing that will also remove the comment posted or links I placed on friends walls, not just the recent activity listing on my wall..
how do I prevent the 3 things above from appearing in my friends feeds or ON MY wall page??
regards
Comment by mixx — May 24, 2010 @ 8:45 pm
I can find NO Pages settings anymore. I hate the new profile Information pages with everything LINKED to PAGES! When I tried to re-organize this mess, all my recent actions were sent to the news feed of my friends! And when I try to remove the links(either by using the remove button or going straight to the community/fan page and press the unlike button) it doesn't let me!! WTF? When I save the changes (after everything removed) they are back again! And what's the best part of this: again, all my friends are getting TONS of recent activity news from me(about my "new" likings). Unbelievable! I had no choice than deactivate my account to get all that rubbish removed from my friends's newsfeed. Funny thing is I can't see these recent activity news on my own page so I can't remove them there, and I had no idea about those messages before I heard about it from my friends or checked my "test account". So FB doesn't even let me know what I post. I used to love Facebook. Now those days are gone.
Comment by Sandra — May 27, 2010 @ 12:53 pm
I guess Facebook forced us to publish our recent activities to the news feed, so that the friends in your network can know "somebody is still using facebook, and I shouldn't stop yet" stuff.
But as I know, many users are annoyed by this action and they have stopped using facebook for a long time.
In fact, I'm feeling so clueless why Facebook never respects its users.
Comment by Pete Brown — May 28, 2010 @ 6:25 am
"Ads & Pages" does not exist in my profile.
I do not understand why these social networking site developers and owners KNOWINGLY do and create things that they know people wont like and will piss people off. It's so simple to just eliminate the things you know most people would not like instead of not try to be slick and use a "privacy upgrade" to hide it as a rebuttal to all the complaints. The news feed thing was possible to control – only up to the point when facebook decided to change up their privacy settings. Yes, it may be an "upgrade" or simpler management settings, but at the same time, they were sure to remove a setting they knew people would want to change.
Since I have two pages to control privacy, I can see EXACTLY what's going on from an outsider's point of view! I don't know what's so difficult about "if you know people are not going to like it, then just don't do it in the first place" (especially in situations where unnecessarily doing something that you know people wouldn't like takes more effort than just not doing it in the first place). This type of thinking would not only improve or solve unnecessary problems in facebook, but many of the situations in the world today.
If I wanted everyone to know what I posted on someone's wall or what I said in a comment as a DIRECT RESPONSE TO SOMEONE ELSE, then I would spread the news myself. We've really got to get something else other than facebook out there because from the beginning, I really wasn't too fond of facebook (and this was even BEFORE the privacy issues got WORSE) but unfortunately, you've got to go where it's popular if you want to promote and have people contact you. However, this does not mean that on my personal page that I also wish to update everyone who has access on every single thing I do or say with all my friends.
Comment by K7000 — May 28, 2010 @ 1:16 pm
Anyway, still trying to detect this "ads & pages" that may be hidden somewhere in the "easier, improved" privacy settings! I think I may be close to it since I did manage to reach the "bookmarks" section… so I guess I'm getting warmer…
Comment by K7000 — May 28, 2010 @ 1:28 pm
Found "Ads & settings" on one of my two pages – on the page without the "new profile privacy settings" update message on the top of it. I wonder if this means that will disappear eventually, or are both of my two pages somehow under two different sets of privacy controls? hmmmm…..
Comment by K7000 — May 28, 2010 @ 1:45 pm
Go to the link – http://www.facebook.com/editapps.php?v=feed
Then:
- Under the “Show:” drop-down menu select “Allowed to Post”
- Anything listed under is allowed to post to your profile (wall) and your friends’ news feeds
- To disable an applications ability to post click beside it on Edit Settings –> Additional Permissions & uncheck “Publish Content to my Wall”
- I don’t know for sure which application controls the “likes” & “commented on” posts, but I disabled permission for EVERYTHING EXCEPT PHOTOS and now nothing else shows up on my wall or newsfeed.
Try it (& let us know if you find out exactly which app is responsible for the likes & commented on posts)
Comment by SuperMom — June 1, 2010 @ 4:02 pm
Dam!
I don't believe this. I just want cancel everything with automatic settings.
Comment by Kingamba — June 5, 2010 @ 5:45 am
Facebook settings are subtractive and that's the problem. They should be ADDITIVE… In other words, make the default page 100% private and let the users decide what they want to share by adding options. Currently it's the other way around where any new member is exposed to the world and they have to spend hours going through technical BS to figure out how to protect their privacy. Facebook needs to forget the days where their members were all party-obsessed college kids, those kids are growing up taking on professions and require more discriminating options. If Facebook can't figure this out, then another social network will come around and steal their business. It really wouldn't be hard to do.
Comment by ndeans — June 9, 2010 @ 8:49 am
Grrr… I also can't stop the recent activity on my wall! I have to delete it all the time… Facebook really sucks.
Comment by caixamagica — June 9, 2010 @ 4:16 pm
Mark Zuckerberg, please make Facebook more user-friendly… you have only made it worse. When I change my profile picture several times every now and then, I don't want 5 or 6 stories on my "recent activity" feed on my wall that I CAN NOT erase. Seriously, is it that hard to just keep things the way they are… privacy was just as good before.
Comment by Andrew — June 9, 2010 @ 9:26 pm
Mark Zuckerberg,
please make these privacy settings more user-friendly. When I change my profile picture several times in one sitting every once in a while, I would rather not have 5-6 "recent activity" stories on my wall that I CAN NOT erase. Seriously, it is not that hard to accomodate everyone's privacy… it was good enough before this.
Sincerely,
Andrew
Comment by Andrew Stout — June 9, 2010 @ 9:28 pm
i'm having the same problem… i can see on my newsfeed when i wrote on one of my friends wall…even after i went to my profile to delete recent activity.. just to double check…i go to home page & i still see my comment…there's no hide button.. when i go to setting to change "post by me" to "only me" i'm blocking everyone from seeing my wall…how do i fix that?
Comment by LD — June 10, 2010 @ 7:12 am
I completely agree with "ndeans".
Comment by Privacy settings suc — June 12, 2010 @ 5:46 am
So I see all these posts, I am curious. I do not see any of the friends my girlfriend connects too but she sees all my new connections. I remove them from my wall but she still sees them in the news feed home page. I do not see anyones there. How come?
Comment by George — June 18, 2010 @ 6:31 am
all of this tutorials on how to do that or twat! ar all useless!!! because EfBee nows update evry month!
Comment by abc — June 21, 2010 @ 3:07 pm
EfBee changes every now and then, so we need to figure it out for our selves.
Comment by abc — June 21, 2010 @ 3:08 pm
All I get is the option to bookmark it. I really do hate Facebook, it's the complete opposite of user-friendly, especially with all the frequent updates which make it worse each time.
Comment by Kyle Auger — June 29, 2010 @ 11:39 am
I could not see the "Ads and Pages" application because I had not created a Page. But even now that I have created a sample Page, although I can see the "Ads and Pages" application, when I go to its "Change Settings" I get the "Bookmark" tab but I do not get the "Additional Permissions" tab. Someone please help, it's driving me mad! Is there something I need to do to my Page so that I can see the "Additional Permissions"?
Comment by JennyK — June 30, 2010 @ 3:49 pm
I want to know how to disable the recent addition of 'My activity and friends activity' which appears under my farmville page. Every little thing that anyone does is listed and it's really annoying to have to adjust the page every 2 seconds to allow more things being added. I can see this info on my home page and that's enough. I don't need it on my farmville page too.
Please let me know how to disable this new addition.
Thank you.
Comment by Debra — July 3, 2010 @ 12:20 pm
Read every post here as well as intently watched the tutorial. Its obviously because of the new facebook update, the question is still unanswered and more of a problem than ever, how do we do this as of July 5th, 2010??
Comment by Jacob — July 5, 2010 @ 11:31 am
I have only just realised that my COMMENTS on other NON-mutual friends' posts are appearing in the newsfeeds of all my friends!!!? I had this blocked before, but I didn't realise those settings were deleted in Dec 2009. It seems there's no way to stop this now?? I will never leave another "comment" on FB!
Comment by ihatefb — July 6, 2010 @ 12:05 pm
PS This article is NO help, it does not answer the question of how to stop your comments from appearing on other NON-mutual friends' pages….
Comment by ihatefb — July 6, 2010 @ 12:07 pm
This doesn't work. I don't see Account Settings on my homepage. Maybe I'm just an old fashioned lawyer who isn't tech savvy, but this is too confusing.
DO NOT PUBLISH THIS WITH MY REAL NAME!
Comment by Adam — July 21, 2010 @ 2:52 pm
"Even more annoying is the fact that comments and who we have befriended are broadcast in the news feed, and that when we write on walls the posts appear in mutual friends’ news feeds; I hope Facebook fix these issues"
EXACTLY. Example: In every morning i check news from certain web newspaper site.
There is FB plugin installed and it shows likes from my friends concidering news _they_ have clicked.
And (sorry friends) i really don't appreciate all of their humour, like toilet or other lowlife stuff. I don't wanna ruin your day with example. But maybe it's also problem of that news site if they publish crap that i don't wanna see?
Hmm. I rather read only interesting stuff from that news site and if it could be possible to filter that recent activity from FB friends away it would be better.
Comment by abbe — July 28, 2010 @ 12:13 am
I managed to get what i wanted with this settings in Opera:
- F12
- Edit site preferences
- Select display tab
- Remove "Enable inline frames"
Note, "Edit site preferences" adds that setting to current site only so that you don't remove functionality which would be needed in other sites.
Other browsers might have similar functionality. I use most of them but i only use Opera for this news site so i am not going to spend more time on this.
Comment by abbe — July 28, 2010 @ 12:30 am
video doesn't show and it's too complicated
Comment by Ken — July 31, 2010 @ 7:31 am
THIS ARTICLE IS OUTDATED SINCE FACEBOOK HAS AGAIN CHANGED THE PRIVACY SETTINGS.
@ihatefb: Unfortunately, you can't stop your comments from appearing on friends of friends pages. What FB could try to implement is hiding your name and pic on pages not directly associated with you.
@abbe: You will only see what your friends like if your FB page is actively connected to these websites. Either uninstall or disable the FB plugin in your browser, or change the Application Setting on your FB profile.
Comment by blah — July 31, 2010 @ 5:05 pm
@blah…yes. I agree…..this whole fiasco of non-mutual friends seeing what I post to a particular friend IN THEIR FEED is a real killer.
I don't want my boss to see what I post to friends, or my Mom to see what I say to a coworker. For some posts, its simply annoying, for others, it will have an incredible chilling effect on what we share.
We all know that if permissions on the wall are set to friends of friends, they can go look directly…but until now it did not show in their feed!!
AND a friend and I have been experimenting. Both of us have everythign set to "friends only"…and my posts to his wall are STILL showing up in one of MY friend's (NOT mutual friend) feed.
Facebook's goal is there to be more "public content" but they will end up with less if this latest blumder means we are afraid to post anywhere for fear of who in our friends list might see it. It used to be you just thought about who of your MUTUAL friends might see it in their feed.
If I end up having to go to my wall and delete every story, I have no confidence even this will work…IS that what is driving this?? Or is it something else?? AllFacebook, I hope you can get this sorted out. Can't tell you how many discussions there are on the help boards right now!!
Comment by kathy — August 1, 2010 @ 3:35 pm
I tried this, but under Additional Permissions my boxes were already unchecked! I joined a group a few years back that I'm not ashamed of people seeing, but I do post a LOT of content on there. I post lots of pictures, I comment on lots of pictures, I reply to discussion boards, I write on the group's wall, and I comment on people's wall posts. ALL OF THIS shows up on my friends' news feeds, and before the new privacy settings I was allowed to hide it. I can manually 'remove' each of these notifications from my own profile, but that doesn't stop the world from seeing it on their own news feeds. I find this really upsetting as it's not my intention to clog up my friends' homepages with my stupid posts, and some of it is private too. Please let there be a solution soon!
Comment by Raisa — August 4, 2010 @ 12:26 pm
I found this out too – not wanting activity from certain groups showing up on my wall or anyone else's newsfeed, I went to Additional Permissions for Groups, and permission to post to wall was already unchecked. It doesn't make any sense and it's VERY frustrating!
Comment by Lanny — August 8, 2010 @ 9:49 am
I do not have anything like "Ads and Pages" in that settings? ?????
Comment by Lukas Dorula — August 12, 2010 @ 7:31 am
YES
I'm having the same issue.
I'd love an update if possible.
Comment by Conor Brown — August 15, 2010 @ 7:47 pm
k great but how do you remove comments? thats the only thing people really don't want on there and are the majority of the feeds
Comment by jess — August 21, 2010 @ 12:13 pm
Okay I got it….!! and it works….!
Do what "SuperMom describes in her post above…. Her post is on SuperMom – June 1st, 2010 at 8:02 pm..
It's not the ideal way.. but it works…
I hated that I could not control the newsfeed that my friends can see about me.. especially, when non-mutual friends are force fed newsfeed that is irrelevant to them or damaging to me… esp. uncool when girlfriend reads what I wrote on a 'platonic' friend's wall…… brings unnecessary discussion.. so stupid of you facebook….
FB… used to be good… Now it's selling its soul to the big boys – Microsoft and Google…. Keep your eyes open though.. A software freshmen in college somewhere on this planet is going to remedy this issue with a great replacement for FB… If anyone knows anything, let me know, I'd like to invest!!
Comment by Don Isleno — August 22, 2010 @ 9:45 pm
Go to "Account Settings", not Application Settings
Click on the last tab on the right "Facebook Ads"
Under third party drop box, select "No One"
Scroll to the bottom and under Facebook Ads, select "No one"
Comment by sean — August 24, 2010 @ 4:00 am
oh my thank you very much. Youv been a great help to me. I just dont know what to do with people who doesnt care about how im gonna feel if they tag me in unpleasant photos. its just really annoying. there are things id rather not let to world know. Because there are things that are not necessary to be known. thanks a lot.
Question:
When i go to application settings. there is just "Authorized" instead of "allowed to post"
now when i choose the "photos" application, there are three tabs there, Profile, bookmark & edit settings
Under edit settings, there is no such thing as "publish to stream" box. just "publish content to my wall"
this means the photos im tagged in will not show on news feed anymore right?
I hope so.
Comment by Clamp — August 30, 2010 @ 10:36 am
This info is no longer current to facebook's myriad of settings.
Can you update this info to reflect our current options for controlling what is posted to our wall. My issue is the same as what you address: I do not want every page I become a fan or, every post I make on those pages or everything I rsvp to showing on my wall.
Thanks.
Comment by Nancy — August 31, 2010 @ 7:03 am
This is all I could find after spending a few minutes looking through the settings:
1. Go to Account Settings.
2. Scroll down to Privacy and click 'Manage.'
3. Scroll down to Applications and Websites and click 'Edit your settings.'
4. Customize your 'Games and application activity' by making such information visible only to yourself.
Not 100% but it seems to do the trick.
Comment by Dramaturgist — August 31, 2010 @ 6:02 pm
To get rid of them on your profile, float your cursor over the blank space to the right of the sentence. You should see a "remove" option pop up. Click that.
You can do that one by one, until someone comes up with a way to stop having them come up altogether.
Comment by Anon — September 4, 2010 @ 2:28 pm
Go to “Account Settings”, not Application Settings
Click on the last tab on the right “Facebook Ads”
Under third party drop box, select “No One”
Scroll to the bottom and under Facebook Ads, select “No one”
Comment by Hasan — September 4, 2010 @ 2:29 pm
this doesn't apply anymore. I can't even find the ads and pages article.
Comment by conor brown — September 9, 2010 @ 5:49 pm
did you get the answer to that question? This the same question i have. its so annoying everyone seeing who wall you right on and who your now friends with
Comment by Rebekah — September 10, 2010 @ 6:46 am
Is there anyway to publish an application (farmille) activity to a specific group of friends?
Comment by Mark — September 12, 2010 @ 4:15 am
This information is no longer current so no longer works
Please up date immediately
I really hate the crap on my news feed
I really dont care who changed there profile photos i couldnt give a damn
I dont want to know every single group my friends join
I dont care who my friends become friends with
and if i comment a wall or picture it is meant for that wall and that picture
NOT all my friends to view!
Shouldnt be able to view comments etc from other people if i am not there friend!
and they shouldnt be able to see mine either wheres the privacy @!!!
Comment by lala — September 12, 2010 @ 10:01 pm
why should all my friends know what i have posted in one of my friends' wall?? what's the point?!?? this is such a basic privacy and facebook can't even protect! SHAME ON YOU FACEBOOK!!
Comment by Mr. Right — September 15, 2010 @ 12:13 pm
When I click on ads and pages, there is no option for "additional permissions". How can I uncheck this box to keep my recent activity from appearing to everyone if the box does not exist!?!
Comment by Lynn — September 17, 2010 @ 1:27 pm
I found the solution. I deleted my Facebook account. If millions of us do this, they will change the options. Don't be a slave to this garbage. I posted a note on the page before closing, noting I was closing and going back to email. Facebook is a joke and we are all wasting too much time on a system that is flawed. Take care and good luck everyone!
Comment by leo — September 20, 2010 @ 12:24 pm
IS ANYONE ELSE HAVING TROUBLE REMOVING THEIR RECENT ACTIVITIES ON THEIR WALL, NOW?? Now it just gives me an option to delete the post entirely (instead of just removing the activity).
Comment by Guest — September 24, 2010 @ 9:05 pm
Agreed. This Face Book post was not useful. Basically the majority does NOT want automatic postings to their Face Book wall. Having to go back and remove or delete the automatic post from your wall is unacceptable. Face book should have a button that either enables or disables automatic posting.
Comment by FaceBook — September 25, 2010 @ 4:17 am
hi when ever i post a comment on a photo of somenoe…all my friends know i posted a comment on there photo…even if those freinds are not that persons freinds…they know…..how can u prevent that.
Comment by guest — September 25, 2010 @ 6:23 am
Maybe there's a problem with FB at the moment, but when I click on the Edit Settings button, it says "loading" for about half a second, then disappears. It never actually loads. I have tried it several times. This is only happening with the photos one, which is wonderful since it's the only one I want to modify. Does anyone have any idea what is going on here? Thanks.
Comment by renee — September 27, 2010 @ 10:33 am
I just tried to apply this information and it would have worked, however, the tab for "additional permissions" doesn't appear on my account! Ugh.
Comment by frustrated — September 29, 2010 @ 1:30 pm
I just want to hide it when I add a friend to my page. In other words, I want to restrict the news feed under my "recent activity" to keep it from posting "YOUR NAME is now friends with "THEIR NAME". This should be an easy thing to do right? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Comment by ken — September 29, 2010 @ 4:36 pm
I TEST USING ANOTHER PROFILE
I created another profile mainly for testing privacy and even if you click the 'X' to Remove it still shows in the friend feed. So if you update your 'Activities' in your profile you can't stop this showing in friends' news feeds. It's lame. It's basically Facebook revealing more about you to your 'friends' to make things more interesting and stir up activity, time spent on Facebook, and therefore higher return on their placed ads to compete with Google etc.
Comment by Canon MFD — September 30, 2010 @ 9:52 am
This seems like an issue raised by a lot of people. I don't want my history tracked by every person on my friends list, but every like and post gets posted. Is there anyway around this?
Comment by Steve — September 30, 2010 @ 10:42 am
I don't see any tabs under the 'Edit Settings' for ads and pages. Did facebook remove this feature?
Comment by Lindsay — October 2, 2010 @ 10:19 am
Disgusting facebook, this is a violation of privacy to don't be able to hide some things from certain friends's home walls. I don't want everyone to see where i go and what i do on facebook. FB disguting
Comment by remusgrecu — October 11, 2010 @ 8:16 pm
i cant find it either
Comment by stefy — October 15, 2010 @ 7:53 pm
THe problema is that when I access my applications I can't see them all, just two of them, but no the most usual like photos, videos, groups… How come?
Comment by Silvina — October 17, 2010 @ 7:55 pm
That WAS a great advice! Unfortunately Facebook has just changed the "application settings" page (it is now under privacy settings) and removed their own "apps" (ads and pages, photos, etc) from the application settings!
Starting to hate Facebook!
Comment by Sagie — October 24, 2010 @ 6:33 pm
how can u hide things from people ur friends with like family?
Comment by will — October 26, 2010 @ 2:57 am
Yeah!
Comment by Squirrel — October 27, 2010 @ 5:49 pm
I can't find it either. Is that a Mac version he's using? I'm bad with computers so I'm not sure if Mac even uses the same Facebook interface as PC or not.
Comment by mark — October 28, 2010 @ 2:10 am
I agree, it doesn't work on mine either. I have to go back and keep removing it and it is one big pain to keep doing that.
Comment by skyambler — October 29, 2010 @ 9:46 am
SAME HERE, I CANNOT FIND ADS AND PAGES!!
Comment by NANA — October 30, 2010 @ 4:34 pm
this is a pointless website!
i wasted 5min of my life i will never get back!!!!
Comment by not happy jan — November 3, 2010 @ 7:10 pm
I think the privacy settings on facebook have changed since you posted this link. I'd be curious how you change these privacy settings now.
Comment by frustrated — November 7, 2010 @ 9:48 pm
Yes – so frustrating! Did you receive an answer back about this?
Comment by frustrated — November 7, 2010 @ 9:49 pm
That's also my problem i don't like people views my profile to know what i did. just like that
Comment by kims — November 13, 2010 @ 1:27 am
thanks but i don't think that's all i want i mean for me its just okay if they'll see what i like and where i'm tagged in but i don't like them to see that i :
a.post to someones wall
b.when i liked someones status or photo
c.when i commented on friend's/page's status or post
d.when i discussed something on discussion board
So How's this going to solve or is there any way? please reply… I don't like experiencing this
Comment by Kimmy — November 13, 2010 @ 1:35 am
Here is information from Facebook itself on removing recent activity… actually, NOT removing it because it isn't allowed anymore.
Q. How can I control what Recent Activity Stories display on my profile?
A. 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.
Comment by Bo Lane — November 17, 2010 @ 4:02 pm
Yes, this post was a waste of time and after reading all the comments, I decided there is no answer to this. I have become less interested in using Facebook since the privacy settings were changed. I just don't understand why everyone has to know when I make a silly comment on someone's stupid picture.
Comment by Brian — November 17, 2010 @ 5:54 pm
They have changed Ads and Pages so that you can not do what this video is suggesting. So much for privacy!
Comment by akitty — November 23, 2010 @ 11:03 am
so there is no solution for this problem?
Comment by Oskar — November 25, 2010 @ 7:39 pm
What Facebook didn't mention was that you can only delete recent activity stories by going to your Profile. There is no option to delete your own story on the News Feed. I tested this by posting a comment on one of the groups I belong to, and then immediately went to my Profile page, hovered the mouse over the story and deleted it by clicking on the X to the right of the story. A little cumbersome, but it works, at least until FB changes things again.
Comment by Roger Rheinheimer — November 27, 2010 @ 11:54 am
This is old! This does not work!!!
Comment by Dragon — December 1, 2010 @ 3:42 pm
Facebook changed their website again. Here's the new instructions:
To disable mini-feed:
Go to Account >> Account Settings >> Facebook Adverts Tab: Change setting to "No one" on both "Allow adverts on platform pages to show my information to" and "Show my social actions in Facebook Adverts to"
Save changes and you're done
Comment by Chloe — December 2, 2010 @ 1:01 am
That only disables actions you take when dealing with ads, not your status updates, adding friends, liking a page that isn't an ad, commenting on someone elses wall, etc. etc.
Comment by 993C4S — December 2, 2010 @ 12:15 pm
cant find ads and pages and its very frustrating, perhaps you could make it easier to find it.. com on dude, stop being an idiot. you made this awesome tutorial where no one can find it. get ur head outta your butt.
Comment by your momma — December 2, 2010 @ 12:54 pm
This does not change anything pertaining to recent activity such as "User" commented on "User Link" or "User" is now friends with "user"…
Comment by SNIPR806 — December 2, 2010 @ 1:18 pm
do you people seriously not get it? FB isnt designed for the users. it's designed to MONETIZE the users. And the more information that is made public, the easier it is to monetize. The only way you will win is to delete your account or just don't use the site. I use it to get people's emails, then i email them privately. People are so brainwashed with this site, it amazes me!
Comment by quasidynamic — December 2, 2010 @ 2:26 pm
I can't find it either…weird
Comment by Nicolas — December 2, 2010 @ 6:54 pm
Check in "Privacy Settings"…. on the top "Connecting on Facebook"…. "View Settings
Comment by Dora — December 3, 2010 @ 9:14 pm
top blue menu? there is no setting…its either privacy settings or account setting…which one?
Comment by shane — December 4, 2010 @ 9:23 pm
Do you have any updated information? I went into my facebook today and saw that now – not only does it say – WHOSE wall i commented on – it says WHAT i wrote!!! What is going on with facebook!!! I don't want others knowing what i write on another person's wall…
Comment by Meg — December 7, 2010 @ 4:04 am
I think the reason some of the "like's u do on a status or comment on a pic or like a pic show up on all your friends news feed is because they have their settings set to "FRIENDS OF FRIENDS" or "EVERYBODY" – if they change them to "just friends"…they don't show up on all yr friends news feed (but I'm not 100% on that!! …I'm just tryin to test it now.) Meg – just write her a private message if u don't want everybody to see it OR go onto yr wall!!! – click on yr status…then go to the little pad lock – click on that..then go on make visible to these people…just put yr friends name in who u want to see it..then when u write the message put @"then the name of the person wall you want it on" plus yr message! seems like alot of messin around but it ain't and I think thats the way u do a private wall post!
Comment by Meeee — December 8, 2010 @ 2:57 pm
Ads and pages seems to be an application you add
http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=6...
I dunno if I want to add it but almost half my friends are using it!
Comment by ZeeBird — December 9, 2010 @ 2:38 am
Where is this applications page?? omg today fb has changed settings so that anyone can see every single comment ive made on other's' photos since the beginning of time! ridiculously bad! ;/
Comment by Karen — December 10, 2010 @ 10:58 pm
Where's the video? I can't find the things you're referring to. All my comments are being published verbatim!
Comment by Bonny — December 11, 2010 @ 7:23 pm
This is all outdated given the new sucky fb format. It's getting harder and harder to control. I think it's time for a general boycott of fb. It's like being a junky and your dealer just upped the price and cut back on potency.
Comment by nora — December 11, 2010 @ 7:26 pm
I set my privacy to friends only for everything except notes I want made public.
Every month or so I empty my wall. Its the only way.
You can do this manually or with the iMacros plugin for firefox.
At the end of the day, I'm pleased to be able to connect with people all over the world for nothing. I don't pay, I can't complain.
Comment by bhadravayu — December 14, 2010 @ 8:33 am
Exactly…..if yr friends had the settings set to "Friends only" – when u comment or like" on their pics or status it should NOT show up on all yr friends news feed!
Comment by Facebook person — December 14, 2010 @ 1:07 pm
lmao soo true. perfect analogy too. ive experienced that first hand =X supply and demand is what he tells me lol
Comment by mike — December 15, 2010 @ 12:14 am
As mentioned by others, this button no longer exists. I tried typing the URL directly into facebook, but it redirects to a different page. Is there any way to hide recent activity now, or is it an option of the past?
Comment by Angie — December 16, 2010 @ 10:06 pm
whew man!~ this is old xD
that don't work anymore right? ? ? *_*
i tried but i can't find the setting i guess this is really old video ?
Comment by prettyboy — December 17, 2010 @ 4:43 am
I am not able to access this settings page in new facebook page.
Comment by Matthew — December 18, 2010 @ 8:47 pm
Why bother having this one ONE, it does not work, and TWO, you won't answer any questions!?!?
Comment by meg — December 23, 2010 @ 9:14 am
Exactly. This is like reading an advice column. It doesn't apply to my facebook page, nor apparently, anyone else's. The menus and settings he suggests don't exist.
Here are the questions I think we all want answered: How to turn off "recent activity" which is incredibly uninteresting and so overwhelms the Facebook page that the page becomes useless; and (2) how to turn off "news feed" completely as well, because it too contains other people's trivia, not the content of MY facebook page, which is why I had the page to begin with. My guess is that neither of these is possible, which means the best policy is probably to get off of Facebook altogether. But I would LOVE to see answers to these if they exist. Thanks!
Comment by Brian Prager — December 24, 2010 @ 9:39 pm
I want to be able to put a post on my friend 'Mark's' wall so they can see it and their friends can see it but I don't want all my friends knowing I've written on Mark's wall – is this possible? I think I need to remove it from both the newsfeed and from my own profile. I think this question is posed above but if anyone has an answer i'd be most appreciative thank you.
Comment by Dowto — December 25, 2010 @ 12:45 am
Yes!! – this is how u do it…..go onto yr wall – click on yr status…then go to the little pad lock – click on that..then go on make visible to these people…just put yr friends name in who u want to see it..then when u write the message put @"then the name of the person wall you want it on" plus yr message! THE MESSAGE WILL APPEAR ON YOUR WALL, THE NEWS FEED AND THE FRIENDS NAME U PUT AN @ BEFORE (THE "@" BASICALLY TAGGS THE PERSON AND IT APPEARS ON YR WALL, THE NEWS FEED AND THEIR WALL!! – but only the friends name u put in "make visable" will see it!!! even if it's in yr newsfeed!
Comment by Facebook person — January 2, 2011 @ 12:36 pm
HOW TO DO A PRIVATE WALL POST…go onto yr wall – click on yr status…then go to the little pad lock – click on that..then go on make visible to these people…just put yr friends name in who u want to see it..then when u write the message put @"then the name of the person wall you want it on" plus yr message! THE MESSAGE WILL APPEAR ON YOUR WALL, THE NEWS FEED AND THE FRIENDS NAME U PUT AN @ BEFORE (THE "@" BASICALLY TAGGS THE PERSON AND IT APPEARS ON YR WALL, THE NEWS FEED AND THEIR WALL!! – but only the friends name u put in "make visable" will see it!!! even if it's in yr newsfeed!
Comment by Facebook person — January 2, 2011 @ 12:38 pm
I don't think removing from your wall removes it from the news feed but only mutual friends can see it in the news feed anyway unless your friend has her wall set to "friends of friends" or "everybody"!! BUT yea any of yr friends can click on the link on yr wall n see the message to yr friend unless u remove it from yr wall but like I say it still doesn't remove it from the news feed for all mutual friends to see that u have sent it.
Comment by Facebook person — January 2, 2011 @ 1:04 pm
nope. this sucks. only for the older version I guess. Looks like the manual way is gonna have to stay.
Comment by Mr K — January 5, 2011 @ 1:41 am
ok- i'm confused about a couple different things. one is that even though i've already "unliked" a page, they STILL keep showing up in my news feed! i've even tried marking it as spam and it still shows up. i don't want to hide their page. i just want it gone. it doesn't make any sense.
also how can i keep from photo comments showing up in friends new feeds? i didn't realize it did that until i was logged on a friends account. not only does it show the comment that i made but it also shows the photo that i commented on. wtf? is there a way to disable that? i can't figure any of this stuff out on here.
Comment by spark — January 8, 2011 @ 8:33 pm
that's what i want to know! did you ever figure it out? i'm actually refraining from making photos comments now. i don't need every one of my friends seeing them. so stupid.
Comment by spark — January 10, 2011 @ 5:01 pm
i dont think this anwered the question that is the title. "how do i block my recent activity on facebook" name it something else please.
Comment by selina — January 11, 2011 @ 11:45 pm
photo comments only show up in friends news feed if the pic/status u commented on is set to "friends of friends" ……thing is u dont want to ask a friend what their settings are every time u want to comment!!! ….people wont know this, just set it as a status what happens if their pics/status is set that way. up2 u
Comment by facebook person — January 15, 2011 @ 8:44 am
This stuff is so old it's now irrelevant. Google searchs show up nothing but past outdated information. Please do something about this. This tutorial might as well be delted since it's over a year old and out of date. FB no longer uses these settings.
Comment by janet — January 16, 2011 @ 2:57 pm
Would it solve the problem with all the 'likes' if we changed the privacy setting 'See your likes, activities and other connections' 2 'only me'? Go 2 'Account' then 'Privacy Settings' then the very 1st sentence says, "Connecting on Facebook
Control basic information your friends will use to find you on Facebook. View Settings" Click on 'View Settings' link (blue) Very bottom of the list is the setting 'See your likes,activities and other connections' change 2 only me? dunno. Didn't try it cuz I don't want everything hidden all of the time. let me know.
Comment by Nissa — January 18, 2011 @ 12:05 pm
This is good information, however, eventhough you remove the Recent Activity 1 liners that are generated to your wall everytime you comment or like something, most if not all of this Recent Activity will still show up on a friend's Top News feed.
I discovered this by making up a fictitious person on FB, befriending it, then I monitor its Recent News, Top News, and other behaviors compared to various privacy settings that I as his friend impose on him. This is a significant security flaw in FB as far as I am concerned.
You really have to watch what you post because it is NOT as private as you may have been lead to believe.
Comment by Jason — January 23, 2011 @ 10:06 am
I guess i'll just stop commenting, liking, etc.
Comment by JeanneM — January 23, 2011 @ 1:54 pm
I do click the "remove post" on the drop down window…but only minuutes afterward when I come back to News Feed all the ones I removed are back again. I have to remove unwanted posts up to 5 or 6 times a day. ( same post each time ) . When I remove a post I want it removed forever or I would not have removed it in the first place…PLEASE DEAL WIYH THIS PROBLEM FOR ME & OTHERS>>>!!!!!
Roy Freake….rdfblue@live.com
Comment by Roy Freake — January 23, 2011 @ 11:16 pm
How do younremove a deceaced friend's name from Facebook listing of my friends?
Comment by Rita Mancin — January 25, 2011 @ 6:47 pm
Clicking the X and then then clicking on "remove posting" does not work !!!!. Today I had to remove 15 unwanted postings 6 times. They come back within minutes sometimes. This is my third complaint message. I search for my previous complaint msgs on this site but they are not here. Why don't you answer me rather then DELETING my complaint post to FB Support People..??????????????
Roy Freake…..rdfblue@live.com….Jan 25….
Comment by Roy Freake — January 25, 2011 @ 7:26 pm
visit their profile & click "unfriend" at bottom-left of page
Comment by jim — January 27, 2011 @ 11:37 am
When I post my status it doesnt show up on news feed…. What do I do?
Comment by Merlene — January 29, 2011 @ 10:57 am
No one has tried this??? I do see that setting at least. I turned it to only me and of course will have to see how it works. I will try to update when I know.
It wold be great if the author of this article would include an update though!!
Comment by kcw — January 29, 2011 @ 12:57 pm
I SENT A MESSAGE ONCE TO A GIRL TO LOCATE HER MOTHER {MY OLD FRIEND} WE NEVER DID THE FRIEND CONNECTION THING BUT VALL HER POSTINGS POP UP ON MY FACE PAGE . I HAVE NO CONTROLL OR ANY WAY TO BLOCK THESE POSTINGS. WHAT DO I DO?
Comment by EMMA TRUMBULL — January 29, 2011 @ 7:35 pm
This is really old! as i test recently on my FB, the best way to do it is, settings privacy >custom (friends and lists) and of course and delete all what you post on friends wall pages via your home wall the only way to be stealth on your friends feed…… FB has a lot to explain!!!!
Comment by Lex — February 1, 2011 @ 10:06 pm
FB Purity adds a "Delete Recent Activity" button to your facebook profile page, that lets you quickly and easily delete all recent activity messages, try it out here http://www.fpburity.com
Comment by happy fb purity user — February 2, 2011 @ 10:27 pm
i just want to be able to add someone without everone knowing , and i carnt do this because every time i accept someone it gets posted into the news feed , do you have any ideas on how to stop this
Comment by ross — February 9, 2011 @ 10:05 am
my problem is I don't want everything I comment and "like" to show up on MY wall. Not only does it take things out of my hands, but it is aesthetically very unpleasant.
Comment by michaelpatrick — February 12, 2011 @ 6:08 pm
Is it possible to change my profile picture without showing a notifications in my friends' news feed? If I delete the notification from my wall/my news feed, it still appears in my friends feed, I've tested it. Maybe the only option is to change the pic in the night time, so it gets a little less exposure.. FB options are so poor!
Comment by TJJ — February 14, 2011 @ 4:45 am
I want to show up in my friends' news feeds, but I don't like having my recent activity show up on my wall; therefore, I remove my recent activity. My question now, however, is if I remove my recent activity, will I still show up in news feeds?
Comment by help please! :) — February 15, 2011 @ 6:30 pm
Well there is no such settings now a days in Facebook like u explained ??? i go to Accounts and in Accounts there is nothing Like Application settings so wat i do ?? its 2011 and when i click on Accounts there is no application settings ???n there r Edit friends setting . Account setting. Privacy Setting. Help Center. Logout.
Comment by Asim — February 18, 2011 @ 12:52 pm
i've been add a friend of mine that she is new on facebook, & she doesn't have that much of friends.
so when i was helping her to get involve in FB, i was totally shocked when i saw my pages activities on her newsfeed which i supposed to deleted it allready from my wall !!!!
i'm soooo confused i even stopped been active on the groups & pages that i like bcoz of this
PS.
plz if you have any solution for this problem, help me with it in a reply for this post.
Comment by miss A — February 22, 2011 @ 6:55 pm
Please rewrite the article. It is fuzzy as is.
For instance, if you comment on someone else's wall, how can you stop that from going directly into the feed of your friends? That is a huge invasion of privacy. If you want to have the record of you doing so stuck on your own wall, I understand that you can remove that. But why broadcast it to the feed of others as well? Does removing the reference on your wall prevent if from being broadcast to those friends who haven't logged on or refreshed their browsers yet?
Comment by @SenderOK — March 2, 2011 @ 9:02 am
Kris:
I understand the method of removing post by clicking on the X and then click "remove this post" from the drop-down window.I use this to remove "one liners" and post & videos etc that are unwanted &I have no interest in keeping on my News Feed. However all deleted post come back during a 24 hr period and I have to keep deleting them over and over.For 3 days in a row when I turn my LT on in the morning, all posts that I deleted the day before are all back again. This keeps up for 3 days sometimes. For example all unwanted post that I deleted 3 times yesterday are back on here today. It's now the Evening of my day and I just finished deleting post that I deleted earlier today as well as yesterday..I expect them to be all back again later tonight and again tomorrow morning. ALL I want is for deleted postings to stay away for good
Thank You….Roy Freake—-Gander—-NL—-Canada
Comment by Roy Freake — March 5, 2011 @ 4:35 pm
Kris:
I just posted the complaint above about "Removed/Deleted" coming back to my N F after deletint them several times. The following is my 2nd complaint:….When my NF has 3 or 4 video pics posted by me or others, whenever I click "home" or my "profile" which displays my page, the video pics jump upward by 2 inches or so covering the posting above it and will remain there.. When I click "refresh" or click on "home" again the pics go back down to their correct position but with-in seconds they jump upward again covering up the post above it . (the text that comes with the video always stays put & only the pic jumps upward..???Some of my Friends are having the same problem…..Please Help me with a response as to why this happens and how I can fix it..Thank You…Roy Freake—-gander—-NL—-Canada..(709) 651-3166
Comment by Roy freake — March 5, 2011 @ 4:49 pm
Go here for the best information on privatizing your news feed. https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=19676&ref_...
Comment by Samantha — March 10, 2011 @ 7:03 pm
Maybe this is old news, but just putting it out here for others:
In order to remove all your comments on other people's pics & you & so-n-so became friends "broadcasts" from the wall do as follows:
Privacy Settings> Custom > Customize Settings> Things I share> Posts by me> Custom >Only Me
Ofcourse this makes everything on ur wall invisible to everyone…
Quote
Comment by Someone Sensible — March 11, 2011 @ 12:34 am
I personaly want to be able to restrict just my comments and likes to 'me only' I dont mind the rest being published to my friends. No way to do it this way I guess?
Comment by Bate — March 13, 2011 @ 7:25 am
I completely agree with this^
Comment by dude — March 26, 2011 @ 4:47 pm
I'm just very very confused. I'd like to stop the status message that says that I have changed my profile picture or the profile picture to my page going out to everyone. This is because i mess around and change the look of my facebook page a lot and I don't want to annoy my friends or they might just block me altogether!
So I delete the posts from my wall, does that stop them going to everyone else?? I don't know, do they go to everyone, I don't know how to find out….
The whole privacy interface is just completely confusing me as does some of the ways in which facebook works against the way humans intuitively think as a group. As a computer facebook thinks only one to one relationships and builds up the whole world in entirely different way to the way it's users think in….. I have seriously got a headache now even thinking about it….
Comment by andy — March 27, 2011 @ 11:03 am
this is no longer relevent since they changed it AGAIN!!! I can't find it aaanywhere!
Comment by stephanie — April 3, 2011 @ 5:04 pm
Ya i looked this up but im pretty sure that it doesn't hide your activity… I think people can still view your activity on your wall
Comment by Chance — April 4, 2011 @ 1:53 am
I simply want to be able to click "Like" on friend's photos etc without it appearing in all my other friend's news feeds. For instance, a couple of weeks back I clicked "Like" on a friend's profile pic….and it appeared in another friend's news feed even though they are not friends with the person whose photo I "Liked"! Is there any way of doing that?!?
Comment by RDL — April 4, 2011 @ 5:24 am
None of this works!!! We can "remove" "Bob commented on Jane Smith's post" from OUR wall, but it still shows up in friends news feeds — and kind of randomly. Facebook seems to pick which to send to news feeds. This is VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY annoying. Makes me want to stop commenting anywhere on facebook.
Comment by anelisa — April 5, 2011 @ 4:07 pm
I also agree…i cant seem to find it anywhere!! I just dont understand why it has to be put on everyones page when i comment on someones wall…I dont care if people see it if they are looking at that wall but it shouldnt just pop up for everyone to read!!
Comment by ashley — April 6, 2011 @ 5:57 pm
Same Problem Here
Comment by Ajay — April 16, 2011 @ 10:04 am
Sucks! They want completely control and no privacy. Facebook seroiusly needs some intense competition to force them to quit this crap.
Comment by Lori — April 25, 2011 @ 12:27 am
old settings video
Comment by Arun — May 1, 2011 @ 5:16 pm
I'm having the same problem. I hope Facebook adds 'news feed activity privacy' someday so that my co-workers won't be inundated with TMI.
Comment by Monique — May 3, 2011 @ 10:51 am
Facebook totally sucks now and I am canceling my account after 4 years. I imagine that just like everything else in Crapbook it will be painfully difficult to delete my page.
Looking forward to my new life, free from all this time wasting social media garbage:)
Laters!
Comment by Mark Z — May 3, 2011 @ 3:30 pm
[...] Facebook previously let users disable their recent activity, the feature was eventually dropped in the process of redesigning the site. However, more than a [...]
Pingback by How To Hide Recent Activity On Facebook — May 5, 2011 @ 11:02 am
yeah i can't find it either!!!! just happened to read this stupid thing on my wall and went to check it out and have spend 2 HOURS looking over and over and over through help and all for it… please let me know what you find out… ! destinyscallingyou@yahoo.com (in search box to find me). thanks. very very very frustrating!
Comment by jill h. — May 5, 2011 @ 1:47 pm
well, i tried the facebook privacy settings to no avail. i tried this and it worked (for me..)
1. go to your wall
2. click on the "x" to delete the post you want to disapear
3. a drop down menu will appear.
4. click "hide all of _____"
5. for me… this made the annoying stuff go away, all of it…
good luck.
Comment by kt. — May 11, 2011 @ 3:06 am
its hidden from your wall but not from news feed (yours and others)
so this is not what is required
Comment by DuFFeR — May 12, 2011 @ 3:39 am
The privacy settings have changed since the man who made this video posted the article. It's not his fault that Facebook has made it more difficult for us to retain our privacy :/.
Comment by LaDeeDa — May 16, 2011 @ 9:45 pm
The user interface for Facebook is the same on Macs and PCs. It's the user/privacy settings that have changed since this article was posted.
Comment by LaDeeDa — May 16, 2011 @ 9:46 pm
When you hover over the recent activity(posted on your wall) click the x, then click block.
Comment by Starshine — May 16, 2011 @ 10:47 pm
when you go to 'view my profile', you can click the little X next to something on your recent activity list, and it will ask you if you want to hide all comment activity, and it looks like it's working pretty well so far!!
Comment by jamie — May 18, 2011 @ 2:19 am
Facebook has changed since then.
Please update this page!
Comment by Luna — May 21, 2011 @ 5:04 pm
I did this as well and to my shock, people were still able to see my activities on their newsfeed! It's like using this option never worked! I don't know if this is a bug or if fb is pulling a bait-and-switch but it's pissing me off!!!
Comment by Jon — May 28, 2011 @ 4:05 pm
actually you download this fabulous extension , sorry IE users this isn't available to you its only for the cool cats http://betterfacebook.net/
Comment by Mel — June 5, 2011 @ 12:46 am
When anyone comment on any photo i am not getting that comment in my newsfeed. And my comments are also not getting any one's newsfeed. Help??
Comment by bindu — June 7, 2011 @ 2:51 pm
Hi there, I am trying to enable my "likes" showing in my news feed – I somehow deleted them showing in my feed/friends feeds a while ago and now want to get them back but dont know how, I tried to do what you outlined by going to the App settings page but there is no "Ads and Pages" for me to edit the settings. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Comment by Stuck — June 12, 2011 @ 1:34 am
when i click "i like" in someone photo, will this event appear at the news feed, like "A likes this photo from B"?????? Please no. Thank you
Comment by saTORO — June 14, 2011 @ 7:21 pm
Maybe the instructions on this blog will help? http://townsvillesocialmediamarketing.com/hide-re...
Comment by Tracy — June 14, 2011 @ 9:31 pm
Maybe this information will help? http://townsvillesocialmediamarketing.com/hide-re...
Comment by Tracy — June 16, 2011 @ 5:59 pm
same problem, stupid facebook !
Comment by Wesmosis — June 23, 2011 @ 6:24 am
@lisa it can be done, click the x next to and old post of a newly added friend, after this it will say hide all friending activity after this you should be fine, =)
Comment by Ezequiel — June 26, 2011 @ 2:38 am
no that will only hide things on your wall, NOT the news feed
Comment by Alison — June 30, 2011 @ 10:00 pm
YO PEOPLE. go to the bottom of your wall. the bottom right says edit options. click on it.
Comment by fb user — July 2, 2011 @ 9:38 pm
on the new facebook webiste its now on here!
To prevent people from seeing a Recent Activity story about your likes, activities and other connections:
Go to your privacy settings.
Click the "View Settings" link beneath "Connecting on Facebook."
Update "See your likes, activities and other connections" to the privacy level that you desire. Note: Anyone you restrict here will not be able to view your likes and activities on your profile Info tab.
For stories that are about content you do not own (e.g., comments you make on other peoples' statuses), Recent Activity stories only appear to people who are allowed to view the original content that they are about, based on privacy setting chosen by the person who posted the content. Remember that you can remove any Recent Activity story by clicking the "Remove" button that appears to the right of the story after you move your mouse over it.
Comment by fbb — July 7, 2011 @ 3:29 am
thanks fb user.
/issue
Comment by another fb user — July 7, 2011 @ 7:04 am
I am part of a group and recently I found that the posts I make are appearing on news feeds of people on my friends list. The group is kind of a controversial one and I dont want people to see what I post…
How can I hide posts I make in a group from appearing on the News Feed of people on my friends list?
Comment by BVG — July 7, 2011 @ 7:06 am
I have exactly the same problem as BVG before me. I'm part of a group and my comments ans responses inside the group are showing in my friends news feed without them being part of the group. How do I stop them from propogating to other's news feeds??
Comment by ZAC — July 7, 2011 @ 9:43 pm
Thanks for the tutorial! can you make something more updated since Facebook changed it's structure and layout? I'm very pissed off that it's not easy for me to change my own settings on my own Facebook profile so that people don't get my feeds!
Comment by pht — July 8, 2011 @ 3:12 pm
BVG and ZAC have the same problem as I do. It's driving me crazy. My posts in my group are going to ALL my friend's news feed. Has anyone found a solution for this??
Comment by Ozoptimist — July 15, 2011 @ 1:55 am
Are you sure that the post still appears in friends news feed even after deleting it from the wall? I noticed that the post had gone from my friends news feed also after deleting it from my wall.
Comment by Rahul — July 21, 2011 @ 5:57 am
hello, I was wondering the same thing have you figured this out. If so email me at msminiss@gmail.com
Comment by Mark — July 21, 2011 @ 8:08 pm
ya i dont think it works either….this article was wrote in January, things (of Course) have changed once again on facebook…. ARRRRR SO ANNOYING
Comment by Mark — July 22, 2011 @ 3:04 am
This is exactly what I was looking for! Thanks so much for posting this!
Comment by Susan — July 22, 2011 @ 12:30 pm
You know how when you go to someones page it says "Recent Activity" and then it shows you what they've been doing such as liking pages,status,pictures ect. It shows my liking pages and status messages but it wont show up when i go to her page. Is this a way that this can be fixed. It's been like this for two months now. And also It wont let me click the x on newsfeed if I post something such as free points for a game for a friend. How can I fix these problems. I'm about to give up on facebook. To many problems and viruses.
Comment by Kathy — July 26, 2011 @ 10:26 pm
I have the same problem as ross. I DON'T WANT MY FRIENDS TO KNOW WHO I BECOME FRIENDS WITH! That's so private! I don't want everyone to know that I am frinds with peter or mary or jesus!!! that's horrible!
i know i'm not the only one who hates the fact that your friends can know everything you do!
Comment by Ishrantu — July 27, 2011 @ 12:45 am
i set up my friending activity and yes it is hidden in my wall… but my friends can still see my friending activities like who i recently befriended with. it's still in their newsfeed but not on my wall though. how is that?
Comment by Geri Angelo — July 28, 2011 @ 3:14 pm
For the past two days have been getting buddy request from man named "James", while playing Perfect Texas Poker, have tried several time reporting it. This request comes up every 3 minutes, is happening to other players also, but with different names. Is this a glitch or what. Very frusturating.
Comment by gay lynn payne — July 29, 2011 @ 9:22 am
I found this, it might help http://townsvillesocialmediamarketing.com/hide-re...
Comment by Tracy — August 3, 2011 @ 8:26 am
HELP!! For the past week I think all my friends have joined pages called "You know you are from (name of city) if". Everytime they post on this page, it shows on my wall!! I have not joined or "liked" these pages so why am I getting their posts??? How can I STOP this – Right now I have about 20 posts like this on my page!
Comment by Shirley — August 3, 2011 @ 11:12 pm
thats exactly what I'm trying to figure out…for now, I keep hiding friends that are doing it, but OMG it's getting annoying..LOL
Comment by Annoyed — August 4, 2011 @ 4:13 pm
How do I stop Facebook from publishing recent activity in groups I am a member of to the News Feed. I don't even see these posts on my own wall, or my e-mail notifications. Nevertheless, they (or some of them) somehow show up on my friends' News Feeds. They complain their news feeds are getting clogged up.
Comment by Wilf Day — August 22, 2011 @ 3:13 pm
This is exactly why I came on here. I belong to a garage sale group site through fb and don't want my friends to see the junk I'm selling or buying or commenting on.
Comment by SAHMof2 — August 24, 2011 @ 1:01 am
I don't know if I'm stupid or what but I don't get this. I want all of my activity to show up on my wall and it's not. How do I set it to show all of that again?
Comment by Heather — August 25, 2011 @ 6:45 pm
I started a group that has a tremendous amount of activity and it is flooding my friends timeline (even those not in the group). How can I stop this from happening. I only want people in the group to be notified of group activity.
Comment by MsDenco — August 26, 2011 @ 1:23 pm
Could someone help please??
For the third time, my problem is exactly the same as WilfDay''s, SAHMof2's, MsDenco's, and many others here.
Why are my activities in a group being published to my friends news feed (top news)??
How do I stop this from happening?
Thank you
Comment by Zee — September 9, 2011 @ 2:21 pm
How do you do the same thing with the latest changes? The interface has changed *again* and is *yet again* impossible to figure out. So.. how do I do this TODAY on 09-24-11 ?
Comment by John Mattos — September 24, 2011 @ 11:25 am
how i can see to friend activity
Comment by Aminrullrashed Paktam — September 26, 2011 @ 1:07 am
Please REPLY to this if someone knows a way to block it !!
Comment by Zoha — September 26, 2011 @ 10:39 am
I see all these posts were made ages ago! What about the recent change? How can I prevent my likes nd comments from appearing on everyones news feed nd walls? Its a privacy kill, I swear! :/
Comment by Zoha — September 26, 2011 @ 10:42 am
I also can't "find" "Ads and Pages"… also can't "find" "Allowed to Post"… 'Guess I need even more specific "click" info to lead me from my profile page to the pages discussed. Thanks for your efforts!
Comment by Kathi Proudfoot — September 29, 2011 @ 10:56 am
Dammit!!! Fuck Facebook!!!
I was able to edit my profile story setting to hide "Comment Activity" so it does not show up on my profile. BUT when I check my dummy account to see if it still gets published (good thing I did – we should all have one), IT STILL DOES!!
So, even though my comment activity does not get published on my profile, it still get published on all my friends' newsfeed, WHAT THE FUCK?!?!
Why am I upset? Maybe I'm just jealous of Zuckerberg making billions on this piece of shit that has absolutely no respect for users' privacy!
Comment by T.Doom — October 1, 2011 @ 2:35 pm
Does FB pay any attention to all the complaints that they are receiving or do they just have the attitude of "get over it?" Something that started out so well – what happened? Are you trying to aggravate us to the point of just dropping out of FB?
Comment by Jacqueline Chico — October 2, 2011 @ 6:27 pm
How can I prevent my location from showing up when i update my status?
Comment by karen — October 3, 2011 @ 9:33 am
thanks aloot for such a great article.
Comment by frozenshark — October 23, 2011 @ 12:17 pm
Simple solution. Delete your Facebook account!
Comment by Sick of no privacy — November 28, 2011 @ 11:11 am
wow from this post I get good info again
Comment by Rainforest — November 30, 2011 @ 2:36 am
So she let you view her account? This problem concerns me too… but there is no way of knowing what your friends can see (for sure) without viewing through their account.
I am also trying to stop certain people seeing my stuff IN THEIR OWN NEWSFEEDS. I can control what I see in my own, fine, but there doesn't seem to be a way to do it in reverse. If there is no way to stop things appearing in your friends newfeeds then I wish Facebook would just say so, so I can stop fruitlessly trying!
Comment by Worreid Jack — December 3, 2011 @ 12:54 am
I hope it doesn't come up on my friends newsfeeds that I commented on and joined this site!!!
And I can spell 'worried'… I made a typo the first time and didn't notice it. I am actually already logged into facebook, so I hope no one can see this.
Comment by Worreid Jack — December 3, 2011 @ 1:02 am
The problem with the 'just delete your Facebook account' idea, is that I have a few friends (close and potential) actually here in Australia.. plus some some overseas.. who I otherwise would have real difficulty connecting with. For example, one of my buddies only uses Facebook now and it is through him I get invited to parties… friends from athletics who otherwise don't bother with me, I am now working my way into their circle… maybe it's different for me, as I'm quite deaf, so I really need Facebook for socialising… I use a pseudonym, so no worries about employers, but if anything better comes along and my friends use it, I'm outta here!
Comment by Worried Jack — December 3, 2011 @ 1:52 am
So can someone tell me how can I bring back that?
Comment by ?. ???????? — December 7, 2011 @ 2:27 pm
they are trying to change people's norms of what is private.
I'm not going to delete my page, but I will stop "liking" and posting, use messages instead of posting on people's wall etc… sgh
Comment by cechan — December 23, 2011 @ 7:31 pm
ohhh gud.. can i knw sumthing plz
Comment by charlie — January 9, 2012 @ 11:41 pm
Exactly! Why is it that whenever I 'like' someone's photo, EVERY friend on my list can see in their News Feed that I've liked that photo. I am yet to find a wat to stop people from seeing photos I like, links I like and comments I make on people's photos. Since Recent Activity disappeared there is no longer a way to control who sees activities such as photos I've liked.
Comment by Fernando — January 13, 2012 @ 11:23 am
Yes you're completely correct Rav but what most of us are trying to figure out here is basically: what's the point of hiding all activities from OUR OWN profiles/walls? I for one don't care if I can see what I've done, I know what I've done! I just don't want my recent activity popping up in other people's News Feed. It's of no benefit to me if it's simply off my profile, but still there for the world to see in the News Feed.
Even if you could delete them individually after they've been posted (which you can't as there is NO funcitioning option for this), this would still not be not good enough. I want there to be a way in which you adjust the settings on a one-off occassion so that it automatically DOES NOT get posted onto friend's News Feeds – sparing us the trouble of having to go back and individually remove the activity not to mention endure those embarrassing minutes in which your activity remains on the news feed. Someone please help!
Comment by Fernando — January 13, 2012 @ 11:40 am
I don't find any page that looks like your example. Maybe things have changed.
Comment by sharkbytes — February 8, 2012 @ 10:32 am