How to be a Facebook CUAO (and pretend your date is one)

(Note: I spammed my own comment section because someone requested that I translate this into pirate, and I did it)

This is a long entry, but possibly the most important I will write over the course of my six-month expedition. It's also the most universally relevant, as I believe that everyone should be well-informed on internet privacy issues.

Remember when I said Rules Girls don't have time to facebook/google stalk? (There is no need to click, that's really all it says.) These days I would venture to guess with some certainty that before a first date, both parties google each other, and plug each other's names into facebook. If the person in question is a young-ish professional who uses the internet on a regular basis, you may have access to following information:

• age
• education
• publications
• current employer and possibly some employment history
• political affiliation, if any
• other organizational/group affiliations and activities
• a list of several hundred of their closest friends with your common friends conveniently separated
• genealogy
  

If the person in question has no privacy concerns or is not savvy enough to know that information they are sharing is publicly available, you may be able to find

• a multitude photographs of them at varying levels of sobriety
• a bunch of messages from 500 of their closest friends and their responses
• timestamps evidencing precise instants when they were using the internet
• excruciating detail about their "status" at a given moment

The upshot is that on the first date, you've compounded the usual awkwardness with both parties pretending not to know things that they do know. (On my recent date, we both ultimately revealed that we had googled each other, which was actually kind of cute. But I'm certain there were also things we discussed that we pretended not to know about each other already.)

Further, the ability to access lots of information about a prospective's life gives you a narrow and skewed picture of him that necessarily excludes most of the things I believe are truly important to a relationship - worldview, chemistry, real-life communication. With so much out there, you are bound to find something less than ideal, whether it be pictures of him with scantily-clad women, pictures of his face from unflattering angles, grammatically incorrect twitter posts, or (ahem) a very TMI blog.

This is why I am applying the Rules principle of trying hard not to look, even online. When I lapse, I try even harder not to judge.

What you can find out about him is of course important, but more pertinent to the Rules is what he can find out about you. How can Rules girls achieve that critical mystery on the information superhighway? My dating experiment so far has yielded inconclusive results. On one hand, two men who seemed interested facebook friended me, and then poofed even though I waited 24 hours to respond to their friend requests! Now I'm "friends" with two people whose only real role in my life is to spurn me. On the other hand, three other men sent me messages (purportedly) because of my facebook activity - usually because I had RSVPed for events they were invited to. Two of them asked me out via facebook message, at least sort of.

The one indisputable conclusion is that what you put out in cyberspace does have an impact. Literally every single prospective I've had so far has interacted with me in some online capacity, the vast majority with facebook as their icebreaking medium of choice.

In its typical antiquated way, the Rules for Online Dating discusses privacy only in terms of safety.

Make sure you have an unlisted number. Otherwise, someone can find out your home address on the Internet...Also do a quick check that your address isn't on the Internet already. You can go to the following sites and look yourself up: http://people.yahoo.com; http://anywho.com. --Rule #15, Rules for Online Dating: Put Safety First

I looked myself up on both of these sites and found my address with a handy map showing my exact location, alongside two butchered versions of my father's name as "relatives." And you know what? I may not be "putting safety first," but my home address ranks pretty low on the list of things I am nervous about people knowing. If people are truly inclined to stalk me, they can easily find out where I work and follow me home. There is nothing I can do about this because I became googlable the second I decided to work at a law firm.

The Rules for Online Dating provides some limited analogies. "Be an Online CUAO," they say in Chapter 4.

Although you may be sitting at your computer in sweatpants responding to e-mails, you are still a CUAO. If you imagine yourself in high heels and a sleek outfit, your makeup on perfectly, and your hair blown out like a magazine model's, your writing will reflect this...Answer the dating service questionnaire as if a limousine is outside waiting to take you somewhere and you really don't have a lot of time.

Phew! I thought they were going to say I actually had to put on my makeup before I sat down at the computer. I am currently in a fluffy bathrobe over a T-shirt and gym shorts. ("Nice outfit," said the next-door neighbor when I stepped out for a moment this morning, also wearing a fluffy bathrobe and toasting me with his coffee mug.)

Anyhow, Online Dating Rule #3, "Less is More When Writing Your Ad," seems relevant as well. I have already concluded that this is no less applicable to facebook. One problem is that facebook is evil and is engaged in a big-brother-esque campaign to make it more cumbersome to keep things private, and, in my view, to dupe you into not knowing what is private and what is not. Those of you who know me know it was only a matter of time before I got up on my soapbox and railed on facebook here. Although what I am about to say will be controversial to facebook lovers/junkies, I would recommend that a Rules Girl do the following at a minimum to sanitize her facebook profile, which is a ginormous but well-worth-it undertaking:

1. Educate yourself on what information you can no longer make private. This includes, most importantly, a) your profile picture; b) your primary e-mail address; c) the groups you have joined; and d) the politicians, musicians, groups, video games, or products that you are a "fan" of. Look through this information and imagine Prince Charming reading it before he knows you or anything about you. Remember that facebook can take anything you're a fan of and put it in a facebook ad on any of your confirmed friends' pages (e.g. "Celebs on Facebook: Rulebreaker and 2 other friends are fans.") Remove yourself from groups and fan pages accordingly.
   
2. Change your profile picture if necessary to an innocuous but pretty smiling headshot.
   
3. If you used your secret junk e-mail address for facebook as I used to (I was HORRIFIED when this was made public), change your primary e-mail address to your school address or something else. Do this by going to Account --> Account settings, and then clicking on "change" next to e-mail address. Select the radio button next to the e-mail address you want to use. If you only have one e-mail listed, you will need to add another before you change your "contact e-mail."
   
4. Remove unnecessary information from your profile. Note: alternatively, you can just limit this information to a special list you will create for your trusted friends, but I recommend you take a good look at your profile regardless, and think about the information you want to be sharing with anyone. From your profile, click the "Info" tab (right under your name, top center of the page). Click "edit information" in top right corner - the little pencil icon. Unclick all the boxes next to "interested in" and "looking for." It's ok to have "single" listed, I think, just so people know you're available. Delete "political views." Click "save settings" (underneath "Religious views"). Repeat this process for "Personal Information," "Contact Information," and "Education and work."
   
5. Create a special friends list. Account --> edit friends --> create new list. Name your list and put only your trusted friends in it. I cheesily call mine the "Circle of Trust" and it contains only girls. Exclude anyone you think may log on and show your profile to a guy you're dating, even if she's fixing you up with him.
   
6. Delete all but the most benign "applications" you have used as a non-Rules girl. You should delete Farmville, Mafia Wars, Questions, Pillow Fight, What's your personality type, etc. You can keep your reading lists, and your scrabble, I guess. To do this, go to Account --> Application Settings. On the page that pops up, click the gray "x" all the way to the right next to all of the applications that have an "x" next to them. Each time you click on an "x," a box pops up, and you click "Remove." Note that facebook has purposefully discouraged you from doing this by (a) making the core tools of facebooks (such as "events") equivalent to applications (such as "Farmville"); and (b) making the application names nondescript so that you don't know what you're deleting and are scared to delete it. Rules girls do not fall for this crap.
   
7. Go to Account --> Privacy Settings --> Profile information. You will see a list of categories of information, each corresponding to a gray box with the people who can see that information. Change everything to friends only by clicking on the little arrow on the gray box, and selecting "Only friends" from the drop-down menu. Additionally, unclick all of the checkboxes next to "And these networks."
   
8. Still within Account --> Privacy Settings --> Profile information, go through the same list again and change the more personal items to your trusted friends list. I would strongly suggest that you limit your Photos and Videos, Personal Info, and Birthday to your trusted friends. Here is how you do this, and it is an arbitrary and capricious pain: for each category you'd like to change, click on the little arrow on the gray box, then click on "Custom - edit" from the drop-down menu. A box pops up. Select "specific people" from the top drop-down menu. Type the name of your trusted friends list in the blank that appears (it will automatically fill in after the first few letters, and you click to select it. make sure it actually appears in the blank before you leave the page). Click "Save settings."
   
9. Still within Account --> Privacy Settings --> Profile information, click on the gray box next to "Photo Albums," which says "Edit Settings." On the drop-down menu corresponding to each album, select "Custom." From the box that pops up, make sure the "Everyone on facebook" checkbox is unclicked. Then select the "Some friends" radio button. Type the name of your trusted friends list in the blank that appears. Click "Okay." Note: I would suggest you make all of your photo albums available only to your trusted friends, but if you absolutely must make some albums available to more than that, make sure you are sober and not all up on some guy in each album; and still make it friends only. When you are done changing the settings on all of your albums, scroll to the bottom of the page and click "Save settings."
10. Go to Account --> Privacy Settings --> Contact Information and repeat #5 and 6. I'm less concerned about contact info, frankly, because you can't really be judged on it. But "safety first!
    
11. Go to Account --> Privacy Settings --> Applications and Websites. Click on the "Edit settings" box next to "What your friends can share about you." On the page that shows up, unclick all the boxes, then click "Save settings." Honestly, Rules girls, there is no real reason that you need to allow your friends control over publishing your information. You should be concerned that facebook even allows this!
12. Still in Account --> Privacy Settings --> Applications and Websites, click the gray box next to "Activity on Applications and Games dashboards." Click "Customize" and select "specific people" from the box that pops up, type your trusted friends list, and unclick all the networks. Then click "Save setting."
13. Go to Account --> Privacy Settings --> Search. Unclick the box next to "Public search results." Again, Rules girls, if someone wants to look you up in facebook, they can. No need to make it easy for them when they google you. I have mixed feelings about allowing your search result to show up to "everyone" in facebook - this is up to you. I currently allow "everyone" to search for me, but I think the more Rules-y approach is not to. You are still visible when you RSVP to events or have friends in common, and potential guys can click on you then.
    
14. Go to Account --> Account Settings. Click on the tab that says "Facebook ads." From the drop-down menu next to "Allow ads on platform pages to show my information to," select "No one."
    
15. From your profile page, find the "Notes" box. Click on "See all." For each damn note you have ever written, click on "Edit Note." Scroll down to the bottom of the page. Under "Note privacy," click on the "Who can see this?" drop down menu. Select "Custom." Unclick "everyone on facebook" check box. Under "friends," click on the radio button "Some friends." Type your trusted friends list name in the blank that shows up. Under "networks," select "None of my networks" from the drop-down menu. Click "okay." Click "save."
    
16. From your profile page, find the "Friends" box. Click on the little pencil in the upper right hand corner of it. From the little box that pops up, unclick the box that says "show friends to everyone."
    
17. From your profile page, click the little magnifying glass on the right, under the gray box where you can post a status update. A little menu will pop up. Click the blue button that says "Just [your name]" (note, if you have followed instructions thus far, only friends can see anything your friends have posted anyway). You cannot change the privacy settings for your individual past posts or actions. So just click the "remove" button on everything remotely controversial or non-Rules-y (including things that evince that you spend way too much time on the internet, such as you posting on people's walls excessively), back to the beginning of your facebook existence. Of course, facebook makes this a two-step process, where a box pops up and you have to click "delete" before it will actually remove the post.
18. To test your privacy settings, go to Account --> Privacy Settings --> Profile information, and click the box near the top on the right that says "Preview my profile." In the blank above your preview, type in someone's name who is outside your trusted friends list, ideally a prospective guy if there are any on the list. If you missed anything, go change it.
    
19. Every time you post a new photo album or note, make sure the correct privacy setting (trusted friends, unless there is some unusual circumstance) is selected from the drop-down menu.
20. Every time you post a status update (which should be infrequently anyway), click the little padlock icon right under the typing area, on the right. Select the correct setting - usually "trusted friends." It is far easier to change your default setting to trusted friends on Account --> Privacy settings --> Profile information --> Posts by me. Then if for some reason you want to post a status to all your friends, it's much easier to select it from the little lock.
    
21. Every time you take any other action on facebook, such as changing your profile information, commenting on a photo, accepting a friend request, or posting on someone's wall, immediately click on your profile when you are done with it. Click "remove" next to the action. You're already being light and breezy, but seriously, why does everyone need to know when you are posting on people's walls or friending people? Do this when you sign on, too, incase someone has accepted your friend request recently.
22. Before you take any action on someone else's photo or wall, imagine prospective dates finding it and reading it.
    
23. Keep in mind that no matter how much you lock down your information, facebook can and likely will change their policies about it. Every time you see anything about facebook changing its privacy settings, either on facebook or elsewhere, try to figure out what horrible thing they've done now to trick you into sharing your information, and opt out of it if possible. If not possible to opt out, delete information.
    
24. NOW are you scared of facebook? When the apocalypse comes, make sure you know how to "deactivate account" - currently Account --> Account Settings --> Deactivate Account. Although honestly, I would not be surprised if facebook eventually refused to let you do that, too.
    
25. Congratulations, you have become a Facebook CUAO. Give yourself a cookie or a manicure or something.
    

Unfortunately, you're not done. You also need to google yourself and become aware of what's there. To the extent you can control it, do. Edit your work web bio. Take down your work profile picture or take a new one. Lock down your non-anonymous blog (as for your anonymous blog, that remains to be seen). Quit posting on twitter, for crying out loud.

Another dangerous website is Linkedin. Linkedin concerns me far less than facebook, because it's kept its promise to be a professional rather than a social networking site. But keep close tabs on your linkedin profile, and remember that it's probably your 2nd or 3rd result on google if you've got a legit career.

As you may have guessed, I'm on a bit of a crusade to educate people about facebook privacy issues. I spent a really long time figuring everything out for this entry, because I believe it is so important. Please feel free to comment below if you have questions or can't figure something out and I will try to figure it out for you and comment back.