How to Not be Outed on Facebook

(S)

Facebook is a notoriously sketchy site – high on the personal details, low on the privacy (with an annoying habit of giving you a @facebook.com email address). It’s like an especially nosy neighbour who doesn’t care about watching you go about your business from the safety of their window.

Why, then, is it surprising that Facebook is being a bit useless at protecting QUILTBAG individuals? I guess it’s not entirely their fault – a lot of problems come from general misunderstandings of the security settings by the users. This is because Facebook isn’t exactly designed to protect details – setting your security settings to maximum and blocking certain people from seeing your posts can help somewhat, but what if someone with less strict settings comments on a status? Someone you want to hide posts from could read the post over, provided they are Facebook friends with the commenter.

This isn’t a post to scare you off of Facebook, by any means. It’s just a bit of a warning about possibly being outed via social network – it’s not exactly the most graceful or most ideal way of coming out that’s ever existed.

Take the most recent (and probably the most publicised) example of Facebook and the user not communicating well: Bobbi Duncan, 22, and Taylor McCormick, 21, both of the University of Texas, were involved with the LGBT university choir known as Queer Chorus. They were then added to the Facebook group by the president of the choir. What they didn’t realise was that the group’s privacy settings were set to “open” rather than “closed” or “private”, which means that members don’t have to have an invitation before joining. It also means that any involvement in the group is publicised on the user’s Facebook Timeline – a setting that is implemented to help open groups network to a large amount of people without users putting in an inordinate amount of effort.

In this case, and in many other cases I’m sure, Duncan and McCormick didn’t realise that the post was visible to all of their Facebook friends – and their fathers.

The president of the choir knew that the security settings were at the minimum – he stated that he wanted the choir to be “unashamedly loud and proud” – but he didn’t realise that the group’s activity would be published quite so publicly or with such negative consequences, and although both users had employed extensive security settings to prevent accidentally being outed, unfortunately in this case they weren’t effective.

After the post went up on Facebook, Bobbi’s father called her repeatedly, leaving angry voicemails each time. When she answered the phone, he told her to go onto Facebook and renounce her orientation and the gay lifestyle. On his own Facebook a couple of days later, he posted: “To all you queers. Go back to your holes and wait for GOD. Hell awaits you pervert. Good luck singing there."

Taylor, who was already out to his mother but had decided to not tell his conservative father, received a very different reaction. His father refused to speak to him or acknowledge his existence for three weeks.

Essentially they both received reactions that they would have been better off without. A more complete story of what happened is here.

I'm sorry Facebook, but you might deserve this one for your security mess

Another way of being outed on Facebook is much more direct and vindictive. I am, of course, talking about the “frape”. It’s not my favourite phrase to use, but then again it’s not exactly my favourite action ever either. 

A “frape”, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, is the act of accessing someone’s Facebook page (usually, but not always, after the user failed to log out) and then posting something on their wall posing as that user. Unfortunately for the QUILTBAG community, all too often these posts take the form “I’m gay lololol” or something like that.

On a gay person’s wall, it’s usually information that they would rather keep quiet, or that they would prefer to reveal privately in their own time. Posted on a straight person’s wall, and then seeing the original user comment to strenuously deny this, is usually genuinely insulting to me. It implies that being gay is something like a joke, or that it’s a bad thing to be gay. Considering the other type of posts revolve around anything from the macabre to the downright disgusting, it’s not too hard for it to become insulting very quickly.

For LGBT individuals who are outed by this method, there is a bright side to the prevalence of this type of hack. If you don’t want to come out, it’s very easy to just reply with “oh, I got hacked”. Obviously it’s not a fool-proof system, but it usually gets most of the curious people to back off.

So how can you prevent being accidentally – or purposefully – outed? Well, make sure that anyone who is likely to add you to a group that would let others know about your orientation knows that the group’s privacy setting should be set to “private” – this means that only members can see and post in the group, and that nobody outside the group can see it. “Open” groups can be seen and joined by anyone, and “closed” groups can be seen by anyone but require an invite to join. If the group prefers to be “open”, then go to your Timeline and delete the post saying you’ve joined it. That should stop people from seeing it.

There are security settings on status updates that can block certain people from seeing updates while still keeping them as Facebook friends. These can be accessed by clicking the “lock” icon when posting.

In terms of “frapes”, I’m afraid the only advice I can give you is to not leave your Facebook open or signed in unattended – particularly in places like Internet Cafés and libraries, but even leaving your laptop in a room with your friends might end up with you having a few unexpected posts. This should stop anyone from posting on your behalf.

Just remember to read up on security on Facebook if you want to keep something secret. Not fully understanding how to use certain settings could possibly result in an unwanted situation otherwise. Obviously I'm not saying that you should stay in the closet, but if you're not comfortable with coming out then this is for you.