Facebook Cookbook

Hiding Private Profile Content

Problem

Privacy is such an important concern on Facebook, and I want to make sure my application follows all of the rules and regulations so I respect my users and don’t get Terms of Service violations! How do I make sure I’m showing users only the Profile content from other users that they’re supposed to see?

Solution

The fb:if-can-see tag gives you full control over whether to display one user’s Profile content to another user. The simplest form is:

<fb:if-can-see uid="12345">You're allowed to see this</fb:if-can-see>

Discussion

The simplest case is probably not all that useful to you, since you’re probably more interested in a specific part of the Profile rather than the whole thing. Add a what parameter and include any one of the following: profile, friends, not_limited, online, statusupdates, wall, groups, photosofme, notes, feed, contact, email, aim, cell, phone, mailbox, address, basic, education, professional, personal, seasonal:

<fb:if-can-see uid="12345" what="friends">
    You're allowed to see <fb:name uid="12345" possessive="true" /> friends
    <fb:else>
        You're not allowed to see them.
    </fb:else>
</fb:if-can-see>

Note that you can’t chain the whats together, so you’ll have to nest fb:if-can-see tags if you want to check for more than one permission at a time:

<fb:if-can-see uid="12345" what="profile"> <fb:if-can-see uid="12345" what="friends"> You can see <fb:name uid="12345" possessive="true" /> profile and friends. </fb:if-can-see> </fb:if-can-see> ...