Blog

Facebook wants you to share your “Likes.” It wants your friends to see all the pages you “Like,” as well as businesses. But you may not want that information shared around—for a variety of reasons. By default, all the pages you “Like” on Facebook are visible to your friends and connections. However, it’s possible to change your Facebook privacy settings to hide them. To do it, follow these directions:

1. Scroll down to the “Likes” box to the left of your timeline. Not your News Feed but your timeline.

2. Click on the little pen icon in the top right-hand corner.

3. Click on “Edit Privacy.”

You’ll now see a drop-down menu that lists the categories of things you can “Like” on Facebook: inspirational people, sports teams, musicians, restaurants, and so on. To the right of each item is a privacy settings box. Click on the box, and you can limit those who see likes for people and organizations that fall under each category. You can limit those who can see each type of “Like” to friends, close friends, family…you can even set it to “only me,” which will hide it from everyone except you. You can also set custom limits and choose specific people to hide the “Likes” from.

Your “Likes” can also be found when you click the “About” button under your cover photo. Scroll down to your “Likes” box, then click on the blue pen box at the top right-hand corner. Click either “Hide Section” to remove it entirely or “Edit Privacy” to more finely-tune your privacy settings.

With these steps, you can keep the businesses, organizations, artists and other groups you like out of the public eye. Facebook’s privacy settings in this area can take a little getting used to, and can take time to set if you want to have a more finely-tuned privacy filter than one that just hides it from public view. But for many people, the extra privacy is worth the time spent.