This was originally published publicly on the Polyamory of South Houston page. Click the link if you’d like to share it outside of the POSH secret group. Many people who are new to the polyamory community on facebook have a lot of questions regarding the privacy of polyamory groups on this platform. We want to ensure that you are educated on how facebook groups work before we proceed.There are 3 types of groups on facebook:
- Public Groups – can be viewed and found by anyone. All content shared in these groups is available to anyone, whether they are in the group or not.
- Closed Groups – anyone can find the group and see who is in it and read the basic rules of the group and group description. All posts are only visible to other group members.
- Secret Groups – cannot be seen or searched by anyone who is not already in the group. All posts, group membership, group description, basically everything about the group is only viewable by the members of the group, who have to be added by another member who is on their friends list.
The main group of POSH is SECRET. This means that friends on your regular friends’ list, that are not part of the private group will NOT be able to see that you are a member of our private group, nor will they see any posts you make IN the group or group events you are invited to and/or attend. If the group name has (POSH) at the end, that’s the secret group. We have a gateway group to help folks who aren’t already connected find us. If the group name says “Gateway” then it is the CLOSED group, which can be searched. If you do not wish to be publicly seen to join this group, send a message to the page instead of requesting to join the group and we’ll reply with further instructions to add you to the POSH Secret group. Many of the group members will request your friendship as you get to know folks. If you accept the request, that group member will have the same access to your personal Facebook page as any other friend on your list. At that point, your privacy is outside of our control. Some people are “out” and some people are not, so it is up to you to decide which of these options are right for you.
- You can choose to not “friend” any members of the private groups and participate only in the group forum.
- You can create friend categories on your profile and restrict our group members’ access to things like your friend list and wall
- You can create a second FB profile that you use only for our community
- You can join the group as is, accept friend requests and also accept responsibility for your privacy. To build on this bullet, please see below.
- We suggest “friend” who you like, as long as you are OK with them seeing your “private world,” (FB pics and statuses) and comment/post all you like in our secret groups as none of your FB friends will see it. 🙂
- However, likes and comments OUTSIDE of the secret groups and on friends profiles are free for ALL to see. So if you friend a member that is open about their relationship style and they post (for example), “I took both my husband and my boyfriend out today,” and you comment on their status, “Me Too!” then know that your friends on Facebook may see that since the post is outside of the groups.
- A simple rule of thumb is, Talk business on our business pages. Other than that, no need to mention anything on someone’s wall or status. Just a friendly tip.
- If you are unsure if you’re posting in the group or on an individual person’s Facebook, check the MAIN page of FB and take notice of where that thread is posted before commenting. You will see the name of the group next to their name if it’s in the group. If there is nothing next to their name, it’s on that person’s personal page.
- Friendly tip: To HIDE your FB friendslist from outsiders you should:
- Go to your friends’ list tab
- To the right, you will see a pencil next to the “find friends” button
- Click the pencil, then click “only me,” then close
- Now only mutual friends can see mutual friends.
- To Verify, on your cover photo click the gear next to “Activity Log”
- Click “View As.” That will let you see what non-friends and what friends can see (view as a specific person).