With over 2.7 billion monthly active users as of the second quarter of 2020, Facebook is the biggest social network worldwide. However, many people don’t know how to use some of the settings options offered by the network, or how to switch them off if they don’t want to be part of a particular crowd.
Let’s take Facebook photo tagging — most people know that you can tag people featured in images on Facebook, but they probably don’t know all the ins-and-outs associated with Facebook’s photo tagging protocol. So, we’re going to take a look at exactly what you need to do if you want to tag someone in an image, & how you can change your setting to accommodate your preferences if you are tagged in someone else’s photo.
Who can tag?
Here’s the thing, anyone can add a tag to any image they find on Facebook if the default settings are not altered & the tag icon appears at the top of the image. That means that any person in any photo can be linked via tagging to their Facebook profile, which, depending on who took the picture, might not be a good thing.
How do you tag someone in a photo?
The simplest method of tagging someone in a post is to add an @ sign before typing their name in the text of the post, if you’re the content creator, or adding it in the comments section if it’s someone else’s post. However, if you want to add a tag directly to an image on Facebook, the method is different— to tag a person in an image, click the tag icon & face defining lines appear on the image, click on the face of the person you’d like to tag, & an input form appears into which you can type the name of the person. Facebook auto suggests names that you can then click on to add the tag to the photo for all to see.
Facebook’s tagging settings
- To view or change people’s tagging options for photos you’re featured in, click on your Facebook profile icon picture & select “Settings”, from the menu select “Privacy Settings”.
- Once you’ve done that choose “Timeline & Tagging”.
- Open this tab & you’ll be presented with a list of settings, which you can alter to your preference.
- For image tagging, the facial recognition tab under the “Privacy Settings” is also worth browsing, to see if you’re satisfied with the options selected by default.
For tagging, you’re able to choose who sees posts you’re tagged in, & who you’d like to add to your audience. There’s also a review option, which allows you to check on tags that are added to your posts before they appear on Facebook & approve posts that you’re tagged in before they appear on your timeline. If you set these review settings to “on”, Facebook will notify you of any tagging changes that affect you, so you’ll be in control of what’s happening.
Facebook evolves all the time as the platform takes advantage of fresh technology, so its worth scouring your settings options every now & then to see what’s changed, so that you can keep your privacy preferences optimized.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
