How to hide your friends list from the public on Facebook

The purpose of Facebook is interaction with your friends, but there are times when hiding your Facebook friend list is a good idea.

For example, if you're looking for work, you might want to hide your friends list from the public so your future employer doesn't associate you with the behavior of your acquaintances.

Note: I'm not trying to attack your friends or disparage them here, I'm just reminding you that you can't tell who might blame you or your Facebook friends.

And there is also another reason...

Some scammers clone Facebook profiles by copying information and photos from these profiles and using them to generate accounts that look just like the real thing.

They then send friend requests from these fake accounts to the friend lists of the real original accounts.

Once the scammer tricks a few of the victim's friends and manages to add them to the fake account's friend list, he can use this fake account to perform fraudulent actions on your Facebook friends.

And in some cases, the fraud targets the entire Facebook community.

As you can see, hiding your friends list from the public helps limit scammers' interest in cloning your Facebook account.

Of course, there are plenty of other reasons why you might want to keep your friends list private. If you want to hide yours, just follow these steps:

Follow these steps if you're using Facebook on a PC browser:

1. Log in to your Facebook account .
2. Click on your name to access your News Feed.
3. Click on the Friends link , then click on the three dots located on the right side next to the “Find Friends” link.
4. Click Privacy Settings from the drop-down menu.
5. Change the “ Who can see my friends list ” setting to Me Only .

Follow these steps if you're using the Facebook app on mobile:

1. Log in to your Facebook account in the app.
2. Tap the Menu icon (depending on your version of the app, three horizontal bars or three dots ).
3. Scroll down and tap Settings and privacy .
4. Tap Privacy .
5. Scroll down and tap Who can see my friends list.
6. Tap Me only .

And that's all. Your friends list will no longer be publicly accessible.

However, I must mention one concern: Your friends who are also friends with some of your other friends can still see the list of friends in common.

For some reason, Facebook doesn't allow us to hide our mutual friends, so be sure to take this into account if you're in a situation where it may affect you or someone you care about.