Staying vigilant on Facebook privacy settings.

What it really means is that Facebook is making you easier to find. People using the site’s Graph Search tool can locate you in more ways now, besides looking up your exact name with the old basic search function. Graph Search, introduced earlier this year, allows people to search more deeply.

For example, if you checked in for deep-dish pizza at Gino’s East in Chicago and someone was searching for “people who have visited Gino’s East ‘The Original’ of Chicago,” you could turn up in the search results. In addition to location check-ins, Graph Search results include status updates, comments and photo tags.

As part of its awareness campaign about the change, Facebook has been reminding users to check their privacy settings to make sure you have shared your activity with the people you intended (such as only people on your Friends list). When you post photos and updates on your Timeline, you can choose the privacy settings for each one to be visible only to you, to just the people on your Friends list or publicly available to anyone using Graph Search. You can get to your account’s privacy settings by clicking the small padlock icon on the upper-right corner of your Facebook page.

Graph Search makes it easier to find long-buried posts from the past, which may have some people nervous about what they have previously shared on Facebook. Click the Activity Log button on your Timeline page to see a long list of your posts, comments, photos and other actions on the site. The Activity Log also shows who can see your actions and offers privacy controls you can adjust for items on your own Timeline. You can also delete old comments and posts you have made on other people’s Timelines if, in retrospect, you think it best.

—nytimes.com