To hide your friends list on Facebook, you’ll need to do the following:
1. Click on your name on the top blue bar to go to your profile.
2. Click the faint down arrow in the upper right corner of your friends module.
3. Select “Edit Privacy” and you’ll see this screen.
Next to “Who can see your friend list?” select “Only Me”.
Since you’re the kind of person who obviously cares about locking down your profile, you might want to select “Only Me” for “Who can see the people and lists you follow?” and “Who can see your followers on your timeline?”
Locking down your profile is important on social media, especially if you have a job in an industry that could make you a natural target — like security. Your social identity could also affect other areas of your financial life, given Facebook’s eagerness to at least give people the impression that your page an accurate representation of your life.
“If there was any confusion over why Facebook has so vociferously defended its policy of requiring users to display their real, legal names, the company may have finally laid it to rest with a quiet patent application,” Susie Cagle at the Pacific Standard reported. “Earlier this month, the social giant filed to protect a tool ostensibly designed to track how users are networked together—a tool that could be used by lenders to accept or reject a loan application based on the credit ratings of one’s social network.”
You can’t stop Facebook from pursuing its business model, but you can at least decide if you want to make your friends public.
Still your friend,
Jason
NOTE: This article was updated on September 4, 2015.
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