Facebook’s Quiet Change: Your Restricted List Is Gone. {Yes, They Can See It All.}
Anyone else notice that Facebook has removed your restricted list? Yes, overnight, it seems to be gone. So anyone you had “restricted” from seeing your posts can now see them.
Why do people restrict what other people can see?
For many reasons. Maybe a teacher doesn’t think it’s appropriate to post everything about her life to her students, maybe an employer doesn’t want employees to know all her personal business, or vice versa, you’ve got people in your past you’d rather not be close to, and the list goes on and on.
I use “Restricted” for several reasons:
- I don’t feel it’s wise or necessary to share your life equally with people you hardly know. Acquaintances don’t need (or want!) to know the stuff you’d share with your sisters or closest friends. My sisters might like to know what I’m up to today but my high school teacher doesn’t need to know that.
- Sometimes Peter’s guy friends “friend” me, and I don’t feel comfortable sharing daily posts with them (nor do they care to see my daily posts!)
- I restrict women who are “frenemies.” Aristotle wrote that friendship involves a degree of love, and there are women who don’t love you for whatever reason, who’ll try to be “all up in your grill” as my sister Hannah puts it. You know the woman: she asks to be your friend, but she’s moody to you, and you’re always hearing through the grapevine that she’s constantly criticizing everything you do. Um, no. In these cases, knowledge about you become ammunition against you.
- I restrict “live wires.” People who are always on the verge of snapping or just plain angry. People who are callous in their speech and don’t seem to know it. They’re constantly in some bees nest because of their speech. (Words. Facebook is an extension of your words. If you have real life struggles due to words, you’ll have drama on FB, too.) I just don’t have time, energy or interest in a close friendship with that kind of person. I could just unfriend them, but I tend to be a people pleaser and a peace maker. This way, we’re “friends”, they don’t see my stuff unless I post it as “Public” and I don’t have to see their stuff.
I don’t know if this is just a temporary glitch or if I’ve missed something. Here’s what I did. I went through my friends list and moved anyone who was formerly restricted to my acquaintance list. When I post to “friends” it will be using the feature post to “friends except acquaintances” for now.
Does FB’s constant changes freak you out? Have you considered closing your account? Did you know about this glitch? Do you have a better way of handling this? Did you use the restricted feature as well? What were your reasons? Share in comments.
it has been moved to settings . blocking . restricted list 🙂
can’t do it. i face the other way round problem. I used to put some names in the restricted list, but now i want to let all my friends to see things i posted, but i can’t find their names. My restricted list in setting, blocking is empty, yet all (yes all, not only some friends), all my friends now are included in the “restricted”. so basically all of them can’t see my post, unless i make it for public (visible even for those who are not on facebook)
I had a Facebook account for about two years and closed it. Their constant privacy policy changes are a little too much for me. Yes, I do miss communicating with some friends, but there is Google+, Skype, e-mail, and even the phone. 🙂
I hear ya! Been considering that myself! sigh
I’ve been on FB for less than a year and am still on the fence about it. These types of unilateral changes make me lean toward cancelling my whatever you call it.
Well, they keep changing the privacy settings and it’s a little nerve-wracking! I agree.
Does this include non – friends who have been blocked?
I’m not sure about that one, Rebecca. I’ve never had to block any non-friends. My gut feel is that this is a temporary glitch. They just released a new layout…so it stands to reason. Hopefully they fix it.
Thanks for the “heads up” Sarah.
I am NOT a fan of the constant changes and would have deleted my account a long time ago were it not for some relatives in Canada with whom this is the easiest way to keep in touch! I do have some friends on my list who are only there to play Odd Socks; no way do I want them to have access to everything! I just checked my page and the people I had on the restricted list are still on it; it’s still an option on my page so maybe just a glitch on yours? Or FB may be making the change a little at a time; I’ll be keeping an eye on it now that you’ve made us aware – thank you!!
Yes, I noticed that my whole layout changed a day ago. The pages looked different. Imagine my surprise this morning when a restricted user posted on something. I don’t like the constant changes either!