# Facebook question
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-question/494337
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [April 25, 2009, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-question/494337 "2009-04-25T19:07:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2009, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-question/494337/1 "2009-04-25T19:07:55Z")
The Mrs. has joined facebook, and dragged me into it too (I admit, it has its uses). But she stumped me with a query about Facebook, and I’m turning to dopers to get help answering it.
She wishes to become a “fan” of a particular organization on Facebook, but not have every Facebook friend know about it. Certain family members have very different social, religious, and political outlooks, and she doesn’t want to deal with the aggravation of them knowing of her involvement with this organization.
Ideally she’d like knowledge of her membership in the organization be confined to just other members of that group, and perhaps friends she decides to invite into that circle. Any way to do this? I’ve mucked around a bit with privacy settings there but didn’t have confidence in my findings.
Thanks!
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### Author:  [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2009, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-question/494337/2 "2009-04-25T19:39:27Z")
Go to Settings \> Privacy \> Profile and select a custom privacy level for her personal information. There you’ll have the option to exclude specific people from seeing that part of her profile. You may want to test it out with each other’s accounts before going live.
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### Author:  [@Elyanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elyanna)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2009, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-question/494337/3 "2009-04-25T20:36:15Z")
I don’t think there’s a way to be quite as specific as you’d like, but you can block people from seeing Personal Information like **ultrafilter** says, but also check out Settings \> Privacy \> Search and uncheck “Pages you are a Fan of.”
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### Author:  [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2009, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-question/494337/4 "2009-04-26T02:46:51Z")
**Elyanna** , thanks for the tip.
**ultrafilter** , my experimentation so far with the various privacy settings so far has not resulted in the desired response. Which tab am I supposed to modify? Profile; Basic info; personal info; status & links; friends; wall posts; etc? I’ve tried a variety of them, to no avail.
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### Author:  [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2009, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-question/494337/5 "2009-04-26T03:28:01Z")
Under privacy settings, select personal info, and pick the bottom entry, custom. The window that pops up gives you some options at the top, and allows you to exclude specific people at the bottom.
ETA: I’m not sure that this does hide what pages you’re a fan of, which is highly unfortunate.
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### Author:  [@Covered\_In\_Bees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Covered_In_Bees)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2009, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-question/494337/6 "2009-04-26T03:31:35Z")
What you have to do it seems is go Settings -\> Privacy -\> Profile -\> Personal Info as **Ultrafilter** said, then input every specific friend’s name under “Customize”.
That’s all I can seem to figure out. A “fandom” might be under Basic Info, I’m not sure what part of your profile it’s considered.
More experiementation is in your future.
**EDIT:** Beaten to the punch. ☹
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### Author:  [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2009, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-question/494337/7 "2009-04-26T16:30:02Z")
Related question- if I friend someone, but then change my mind, can I not only “unfriend” them but also block them from seeing me as other people’s friend, or from finding me listed when they “search for people on Facebook?”
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### Author:  [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2009, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-question/494337/8 "2009-04-26T16:36:07Z")
Missed the edit window- not unsearchable to everybody, but just to one person?
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### Author:  [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2009, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-question/494337/9 "2009-04-26T17:16:37Z")
Thanks for the help, folks. But given the failure/uncertainty rate we’ve achieved thus far, the Mrs. is gonna just skip joining that particular organization.
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### Author:  [@Saltire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saltire)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2009, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-question/494337/10 "2009-04-26T22:22:41Z")
You should also consider using Friend Groups. You can group various folks together, and set different privacy settings for different groups. So your lifelong chums can see that lustful comment you make about an actress, but your boss cannot.
To be honest, I’ve set up groups for myself, but haven’t yet bothered to customize the settings for each. So I can’t really tell you if it works as described.
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### Author:  [@Ms\_Macphisto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms_Macphisto)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2009, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facebook-question/494337/11 "2009-04-27T00:03:54Z")
> [@EJsGirl](#):
>
> Related question- if I friend someone, but then change my mind, can I not only “unfriend” them but also block them from seeing me as other people’s friend, or from finding me listed when they “search for people on Facebook?”
You can block individuals from seeing you. Go to your privacy settings, and on the overview page, there’s a box labelled “Block People”. Enter the person’s name, and they won’t be able to see you any more, and you’ll be unfriended.