Speaker 1: A Facebook privacy checkup. I'm Rich Demiro. This is Rich
Speaker 1: on Tech Daily. So no doubt you've heard all about
Speaker 1: the recent Facebook news and you know that your information
Speaker 1: on there is being shared in a lot of different ways.
Speaker 1: So now's a good time to do a little privacy
Speaker 1: checkup on the social media site because you want to
Speaker 1: see which apps can still access your personal information, including likes, photos,
Speaker 1: and potentially your friend list. And even more so, you
Speaker 1: heard what happened. A single Facebook app was able to
Speaker 1: siphon off information about millions of users. Now, for starters,
Speaker 1: Facebook has clamped down a little bit. It no longer
Speaker 1: allows apps to reach us deep into your friend's information.
Speaker 1: You can share all of your information, including your likes,
Speaker 1: your friend list, all that good stuff, but they can't
Speaker 1: really get all of your friend's stuff as well. So
Speaker 1: that's a good thing, but it might still have people
Speaker 1: on edge. So now's a good time to take a
Speaker 1: look at all the apps that can actually access your data.
Speaker 1: So what are these apps? Well, these are any apps
Speaker 1: that you've actually clicked that log in with Facebook button
Speaker 1: on the website. So let's say you go to a
Speaker 1: new site, like you know, like a food delivery site,
Speaker 1: you go there, it says, hey, log in with Facebook.
Speaker 1: It's much simpler because you don't have to create a
Speaker 1: new username and password. I never recommend that you do that.
Speaker 1: This is for any website that you go to that
Speaker 1: says log in with Facebook. It's very convenient for you
Speaker 1: to log in with Facebook because you don't have to
Speaker 1: come up with that new username and password. But for
Speaker 1: security reasons, it is not a good thing to have
Speaker 1: those linked. You always want to create a separate log
Speaker 1: in for every website that you go to. So that's
Speaker 1: number one, so stop doing that. Number two. Basically, these
Speaker 1: apps that get access to your Facebook profile, how do
Speaker 1: they do that. Well, let's say you're surfing Facebook and
Speaker 1: you come across a quiz, a personality quiz, and you
Speaker 1: click the quiz. Next thing you know, it says you know,
Speaker 1: it says some sort of Facebook button. You press that,
Speaker 1: and what that's doing is it's actually logging you in
Speaker 1: with your face Book account. So you don't even realize
Speaker 1: half the time that these apps are immediately going to
Speaker 1: work and sort of collecting all of your personal information.
Speaker 1: So while it looks like a quiz on the outside,
Speaker 1: what the app is really doing is trying to collect
Speaker 1: as much data as possible on as many users as possible.
Speaker 1: So they're just harvesting information basically, So you want to
Speaker 1: stop doing that. Number one. Number two. Once you've done
Speaker 1: the damage, you can go back and see a list
Speaker 1: of all of the apps that you've authorized over the years.
Speaker 1: And if you haven't taken a look at this list
Speaker 1: in a while, it may surprise you because even when
Speaker 1: you click out of that personality quiz, next thing you know,
Speaker 1: it is still taking your information for months or years
Speaker 1: after that. One thing these apps used to really do
Speaker 1: a lot is post to your page on your behalf.
Speaker 1: So that's the other permission that you really want to
Speaker 1: be on the lookout for when you're surfing through Facebook,
Speaker 1: and anytime an app requests permission to post on your behalf,
Speaker 1: you want to say no. That is the number two thing,
Speaker 1: all right. So how do you get rid of all
Speaker 1: these lingering apps that have access to your information? Well,
Speaker 1: if you're on a desktop computer, you want to look
Speaker 1: for the little down arrow next to the question mark,
Speaker 1: which is usually in the upper right hand corner of
Speaker 1: your screen. Then on the menu click settings. Okay, Now,
Speaker 1: from here you're going to look on your left hand
Speaker 1: side of the screen and click where it says apps.
Speaker 1: Once you click that, you should see a big box
Speaker 1: in the middle of your screen that says logged in
Speaker 1: with Facebook. Here you're going to see a list of
Speaker 1: all kinds of apps, some good, some bad. Look for
Speaker 1: anything that you don't recognize or that you don't use anymore.
Speaker 1: Go through this list one by one and really be
Speaker 1: critical here. If you don't need it, get rid of it.
Speaker 1: You can always reactivate it later. Once you see something
Speaker 1: you don't like, hover over the name and a little
Speaker 1: pencil and an X icon should appear. Click the X
Speaker 1: for any app that you want to remove, and just
Speaker 1: keep doing this until you've cleared up the entire list.
Speaker 1: You don't have to get rid of everything. If there's
Speaker 1: stuff that you use, then leave it there. But if
Speaker 1: there's stuff that you don't recognize, definitely get rid of it,
Speaker 1: and the next time you need it you can always
Speaker 1: relog in. Now. I know a lot of you are
Speaker 1: doing this from your mobile phone, so on Android and
Speaker 1: iOS it's pretty much the same process just looks a
Speaker 1: little bit different. But on Android and iOS you want
Speaker 1: to look for the three little menu bars. Some people
Speaker 1: call this a Hamburger menu, but it's right next to
Speaker 1: your notification. So if you look for your notifications inside
Speaker 1: the Facebook app, it's right next to it. So on Android,
Speaker 1: this is in the upper right hand corner of your screen.
Speaker 1: On iOS it's in the lower right hand corner. And
Speaker 1: then the process is pretty much the same. You tap
Speaker 1: that menu bar, scroll until you see settings. Tap there,
Speaker 1: choose account Settings. Now choose apps, and then tap the
Speaker 1: section where it says logged in with Facebook. And again,
Speaker 1: go through this list and look for any app, website,
Speaker 1: or service you don't use or you don't recognize. And
Speaker 1: then if you want to get rid of one, there's
Speaker 1: not going to be a little X. You have to
Speaker 1: tap it and then scroll all the way down and
Speaker 1: click remove app. And you can do this as many
Speaker 1: times as necessary. Now, one more thing you can do
Speaker 1: if you're just curious about all this kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: is you can tap on any of these apps or
Speaker 1: services and kind of see what they have access to.
Speaker 1: And it's really fascinating because you see that some of
Speaker 1: them say we have access to your personal information, your
Speaker 1: email address, your like list, your photos, your list of friends.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's really crazy the information that is floating
Speaker 1: around out there on Facebook. Now, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: say Facebook is evil. I'm just not because Facebook has
Speaker 1: connected people in amazing ways. I just think that you
Speaker 1: have to be very cognizant about the information that you're
Speaker 1: sharing on this social media platform. Just imagine that pretty
Speaker 1: much anything that you share could be public in one
Speaker 1: way or another. Let's look at the most basic way
Speaker 1: something that's private could be shared publicly, and that's by
Speaker 1: someone taking a picture of it. So let's say I'm
Speaker 1: friends with someone on Facebook. Privately, I say something private
Speaker 1: to them. A friend is looking over their shoulder as
Speaker 1: they read my message or my post, and they take
Speaker 1: a snapshot of it. Next thing you know, they share
Speaker 1: that snapshot in a public way. Well, now your private
Speaker 1: information has just gone public in the simplest way possible.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that's right, but you just have
Speaker 1: to think about it. Nothing is truly private when it's
Speaker 1: in print, when it's posted online, it just isn't. So
Speaker 1: if you want the full directions on this, I know
Speaker 1: it's a lot, just go to my website rich on
Speaker 1: tech dot TV. I've got this all written out. It's
Speaker 1: something very important you should do and help the friends
Speaker 1: in your life that are a little less tech savvy
Speaker 1: to do this as well. Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1: Please rate and review this podcast in the Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: app that way more people discover it. I'm rich damiro
Speaker 1: Rich on tech dot tv. Thanks for listening. Talk to
Speaker 1: you real soon.