Studies show that 41.6 percent of Americans have a Facebook account– which makes the site undoubtedly massive. However, Facebook has a dynamic set of privacy and security policies that’s making it difficult to set your personal Facebook settings properly.  And in light of the recent EU regulations proposed for Facebook, Google and others, it’s evident that privacy is still a sticking point towards the progressive development of social media platforms. Here’s a great infographic detailing an overview of what to consider in setting your privacy settings.

The number one rule in social media is to make your account secure. Just recently, Facebook introduced a new feature that allows users to access the site via HTTPS secure connection which online banking and shopping sites use to protect users’ crucial data. The downside, however, is it makes the network slower, but it’s a good bargain for safety. Go to “Account Security” and check “Secure Browsing (https)”.

Your existing photos should not have a uniform privacy setting. There are some things that your boss needs not to see. Connecting Settings, which allows people to find you by photo and several other information such as age, gender etc, should not left too open to prevent spammers and getting added by people who you really don’t know. You can also choose the level of visibility you want: Friends only, Friends of Friends, and Everyone. Don’t overdo it though or your friends will not be able to find you all.

Giving third parties the privilege to access your account is the function of Instant Personalization. This is for the purpose of personalizing your experience on the site. Uncheck the “Enable instant personalization on partner websites” checkbox should you wish to strip these third parties access to your profile. If you want people to find you on search engines when they search, you can do so by enabling Public Search. You can also wish to limit the visibility of your status, photos, videos, tagged photos etc. to Everyone, Friends or Friends of Friends.

One of the latest additions of Facebook, the check-in feature, should also be examined by the user closely. This will allow your friends to tag or check you into places. Be sure to disable “friend tags” if you want to be the only person to control where you’re at. You should review your every app, as well as the information you want to show your friends. You might have the best privacy setting, but third parties can still access your profile via your friends. Finally, there’s Friends’ List which allows the user to categorize friends so you might want to apply this well.

Even though Facebook is a place to socialize, you should still proceed with precaution when adding people you don’t know. There are as much malicious people online as in real life. Moreover, be careful with what you say, as well as what people post on your profile. The world can see your wall so you better keep what’s meant to be hidden, like very private information for instance. If you can’t handle the pressure and restrictions, you might want to consider disabling your wall.