Facebook changes – the TICKER problem

At around 1am EST on September 21, 2011 Facebook made a drastic change to your newsfeed. One of the most noticeable changes is a “ticker” at the top right side of your screen. This “ticker” shows you what your friends are doing in real time. As if anyone really needed to see all that. :-\

One of the problems with the “ticker” is that it shows every single comment you make on your friends’ posts. That means that friends of yours can see comments you make on other friends’ posts, even if they’re not friends with each other. For those of us who value our privacy, this is a HUGE problem!

I spent about an hour tonight, experimenting with some friends to find some solutions to this “ticker” problem we now have. I’ll try to explain each one in as much detail as possible.

Scenario 1

You are friends with Jack and Jill. Jack and Jill are NOT friends with each other. They are NON-mutual friends. You want to post a comment on Jack’s status, but if you do, Jill might see your comment in her “ticker”. Not cool, especially if you happen to be saying something about Jill that you’d rather Jill not see.

Before you comment on Jack’s post (status, link, photo, etc.), check to see what the privacy settings are for that post. To do this, hover your mouse over the symbol to the right of the time-stamp on the post. You will see one of four options: the post will be shared with either the Public, Friends of Friends, Friends only, or a Custom list of friends. If the post is set to anything BUT Public, then you are safe; Jill will not see your comment on her “ticker”. If the original post is set to Public, then you can either choose not to comment, or you can ask Jack to change the privacy of that post to anything but Public.

Scenario 2

You are friends with both Jack and Jill, and they are also friends with each other. They are mutual friends. If you make a comment on Jack’s post, chances are Jill will see that comment in her “ticker”. Of course, Jill would be able to see the post and all comments to that post if she went to Jack’s wall, so this isn’t really a privacy concern, it’s only a “ticker” problem. Maybe you don’t want Jill to be alerted to your presence online at that exact moment, and you commenting on a mutual friend’s post would alert her that you’re online and commenting. Again, if she happened to be looking at that particular post, or was hanging out on Jack’s wall, she’d see you comment anyway. The point is, you don’t want everyone seeing every little comment you make ALL. THE. TIME.

This is where you change YOUR privacy settings, to keep your activity a little more private and off the “ticker”. Go to your profile. Find a post that says something to the effect of “You commented on Jack’s status.”  Hover your mouse over the post, then click the hazy blue “X” that shows up to the right of that post. Click on the option that says “Hide all recent comment activity from my profile.”  Verify your choice by clicking on “Hide All”. Now do the same to any other type of activity you don’t want seen by everyone on the “ticker”, like who you’ve recently friended.  Voilà – no more comment showing up in everyone’s “ticker”.

Scenario 3

You want to post a status, but you only want your family to be able to see that post. First, you must create a “friend list”, or you can use the one that Facebook provided with the changes that happened sometime last week. On the left side of your Home Page, hover your mouse over the word “Lists”, then click on the word “More”. You’ll be taken to a new page, where you will find the many lists that Facebook has provided, or you can create your own list. Click on the Family List, and you can add friends to that list.

Once you have all of your family added to the list, you can now post a status that will only be seen by people on that list.  Type out your status, but before you click “Post”, click the button to the left of the “Post” button, and you will be able to choose a list of people that you want to see your status.  Click on “Family”, then post your status. You can change this later if you decide it’s ok for everyone to see your status. But remember, if you make it PUBLIC, then when someone comments on that status, their friends will be able to see it in their feed, even if they are not a friend of yours!

Scenario 4

This one is very simple. If you post to Facebook from an outside source … Twitter, for example … it will NOT show up in the “ticker”, nor will comments made to that Twitter post.

So, there ya have it. The fruits of my labor (and the labor of my wonderful friends Ali, Mary and D.a. who were a HUGE help to me in figuring this all out).

Be careful with what you post out there in Facebook-land! And NEVER take your privacy settings for granted. You never know when Facebook will make a major change, and obliterate the settings you’ve come to expect to keep your stuff PRIVATE.

Being Bi

I knew from a fairly young age that I was different than other girls.

Growing up, I never heard the word “gay” unless it meant “happy”, and even then, it was pretty rare. I was never exposed to same-sex couples. I had no idea this part of life even existed. I think the first time I ever heard the word was in the mid 80’s, during the height of the AIDS epidemic, and even then I had to piece together what it meant. I thought that only men could be gay, based on what I was seeing and hearing. It wasn’t until the last couple of years of high school that I heard the word “lesbian”, and I had to ask what that meant.

I don’t think that my parents purposefully kept this info from me; I think that they just didn’t have much exposure to it, themselves, so how could they open up this topic of conversation? My parents were great about talking to me about sex and protecting myself from unwanted pregnancy and disease! I was given a series of books by Peter Mayle, which started with “Where Did I Come From?” and went to puberty with “What’s Happening To Me?” (both of which I’ve passed down to my own children).

Before the age of 7, I had already had a sexual experience with a female friend of mine. I won’t go into detail, but there was a closet involved. Which, for me,  makes hearing the phrase “coming out of the closet” a little funny, and a lot poignant. I was also a somewhat avid browser of my father’s Playboy magazines, that he thought were hidden so well under his bed. The naked female body elicited some physical reactions from my body that I did not understand, and was too embarrassed to ask about.

Between the ages of 7 and 10, I had one experience with a boy and one with a girl. Both of which filled me with a sense of shame, because I was old enough by then to know I was doing something I shouldn’t be doing. I felt no shame by having sexual encounters with girls, just that I had been taught that sex was something for adults. I wasn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, having sex, but I was touching (and being touched) on body parts that were meant for adults only.

Between the ages of 10 and 21, my attraction to both girls and boys grew pretty strong. If it weren’t for my best friend, I would have never known there was a term for that. I had confided in my best friend that I was attracted to some girls, and she explained to me what that meant. It was all so foreign to me. I never said a word to anybody else, and she kept my secret like a best friend is supposed to do. I didn’t have another sexual encounter with a female until my 21st birthday.

I eventually grew more confident in myself and with my sexuality. I finally tried out the “coming out” part to my first husband, and needless to say, he was ecstatic, though hesitant. His head filled with plans for a Ménage à Trois, then reality snuck in and he started to worry about the possibility of me leaving him for another woman. We talked a lot about what my sexuality meant for us as a couple. Of course I was open to having fun with it, in fact I was the one suggesting it in the first place! And no, I never once thought about leaving him for a woman.

After he and I divorced (it had nothing to do with my sexuality), I ended up in a long term relationship with a guy who was told up front about my sexuality, and who, of course, had the same thoughts of fun that most guys would be thinking. During the early years of our relationship, we were careful not to clue in the children (his 2, our 1) to either my sexuality or our lifestyle. We both had a number of girlfriends – some separately, some jointly. Some of our friends knew our situation, but our family was kept completely in the dark.

I think, eventually, my father had an inkling that I was bi, but never said anything directly to me. He knew that I was going to a nearby strip club on occasion (because I’d ask him for driving directions), but never asked why I was going. I didn’t officially “come out” to him and my step-mother until my mid 30’s. And even then, my step-mother was only mildly surprised, and my father seemed completely unsurprised … almost apathetic … as if I’d just told him it was my birthday (which it was).

My mother … that’s a whole other can of worms. Some day I’ll get into the story of coming out to my mother. It’s not pretty. In fact, it’s downright ugly and difficult for me to recount. Suffice it to say, she was not happy, and it was the beginning of the end of our relationship.

Eventually, the children came to realize that I was bi. I just couldn’t hide it from them any more. I tried, though, because I didn’t want them to be embarrassed to have a (step) mother who was different than their friends’ mothers. I didn’t want them to be teased or bullied. Turns out, my worries were completely unfounded. My step-daughters weren’t fooled at all; they claimed to know long before I officially told them. My Son was still fairly young at the time (about 7 or 8), so my bisexuality was a non-issue for him. In the years since, he’s not only not been embarrassed by me, he’s embraced it as something that makes his mom stand out from others! He makes me proud to be his mother.

Shortly after I came out to my mother, my relationship with my Son’s father ended. I married a guy who was a bit hesitant about my sexuality, because he’d been taught that it was something that was wrong, but accepted me for who I am nonetheless. He’s definitely become more comfortable with it over the years, so comfortable that it’s natural to him now. So natural for everyone that knows me, that it’s not uncommon in conversation. It’s just a part of our everyday lives now.

And there are also perks to being married to, or the child of a bisexual woman. How many husbands get to sit and people-watch with their wives, while comparing each others attraction to women walking by? How many boys get a lesson from their mother about how to discreetly check out a female?  😉

My sexuality is something I would never dream of wanting to be different. I’m proud of who I am, and I’m fortunate that the majority of people in my life accept me for who I am, and also would never dream of me being any different. I’m proud of having children who accept others for who they are inside, and don’t care what their sexuality is. I’m fortunate to have people in my life who will defend not only me, but every member of the LGBT community, against discrimination and bullying by bigots.

For me, being Bi has been a mostly positive thing. It’s part of who I am.

Being Bi means being Me.