They Just Gave You Away: Tagging Others in Facebook Places

Since the introduction of photo tagging in Facebook, there have been those who would rather not be associated with certain photos, quickly removing their tags from your unflattering or embarrassing photos.  My argument has always been to give the photographer the option to make a tag private, so nobody but the author knows, simply for the sake of “tagging” as it’s intended…to index your photos by who is in them.

Now, with the release of Facebook Places, a location based “here I am” feature much like Yelp, Gowalla, and Foursquare, it is possible for you to tag someone else in your “here I am.”

Essentially, this is the same as photo tagging, but it’s really tagging the person in real time, but there’s no evidence that it’s actually true.  In the photos, the tagged user is obviously there.  In a Places tag, I could say someone is there who isn’t.  That could cause problems.

For the transparent, who lives his or her life on the up and up, having someone tag you as being somewhere you are shouldn’t be an issue.  After all, if you don’t want to be seen somewhere, why would you live in secret and hide it from others?  There are certainly valid and healthy reasons you would want your location not to be disclosed.

Thankfully, you have control over this, but like most other privacy settings, the default is for the ability to tag you to be enabled, not disabled.  If it wasn’t enabled by default, people wouldn’t know about it.

How To Prevent Others From Tagging You

1. Login to Facebook.
2. On the Account link (upper right hand corner), click Privacy Settings.
3. Click Customize Settings.
4. Scroll down to “Things Others Share.”
5. Under “Friends can check me into places” select Disabled.

There are two other settings related to Places that you can set in the “Things I Share” section.  Set these according to your personal preference.

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