How to Stop Certain Friends from Writing on Your Facebook Wall

[Update]: The steps below are becoming outdated as Facebook continually changes its interface. Please refer to this video, which I found on YouTube, to be the most correct / up-to-date guide.

Many people wonder if it is possible to have a friend on Facebook but prevent him or her from writing on their wall. This is entirely possible, thanks to Facebook's fine-tuned privacy controls. You can have someone who is your friend on Facebook but does not have permission to post anything on your wall. You're probably wondering what the purpose of this is. Well, there are many reasons to stop a friend from writing on your wall. First, it could be because that person is annoying and is posting rude or inappropriate things on your wall. Or, it could be because that person got a virus and is spreading spam by posting on everyone's wall. (This happened to one of my friends recently: she used some application that posted spam links on all her friends, including my, wall) This can be done permanently, or temporarily, depending on the case, and is easily done and removed. So let's begin.

First, check out some other Facebook how-to guides:

• How to friend your parents without sacrificing privacy
• How to hide your status updates from certain friends
• How to stop certain friends from commenting on your posts
• How to appear offline to some friends but not others
• How to hide your friends on Facebook

The Privacy Controls

Deep down in Facebook's new privacy controls is a setting that controls who can post content on your wall. In case you need a refresher, that means they can go to your profile, and there is that little box at the top that they can comment in which will then show up for everyone to see. This control is rather hard to find, and fairly obscurely labeled, so many people have trouble finding it. I will explain how to find and activate it in one moment.

The One Drawback

Before I do, however, you should know one thing: by blocking someone from writing on your wall, you also prevent them from seeing wall posts other friends have left on your wall. For whatever reason, Facebook lumped these settings together under one control. So if you block them from writing, you also block them from seeing other people's posts. They will still be able to see your own posts and status updates though.

How to Do It

In Facebook, click on "Account," then "Privacy Settings." Then, near the bottom, select "Customize settings" as shown in the image below:

On the next page, look for an entry called "Things others share." Next to it, there is a title "Can see wall posts by friends." Now this is the confusing part: you'd never expect this setting to prevent them from writing on your wall, only that it would stop them from seeing the posts made by others. But the fact is, it controls both. Don't ask me why! Nonetheless, you will need to select the drop down menu next to it as shown here:

(Note, your menu may say "Friends Only" or "Everyone" depending on your current settings. Mine says "Posts by Friends" because of some list I made, but you can ignore that.) Click "edit" next to "Custom" near the bottom. Then, a new window will appear.

Next to "These People," you can leave it as only friends (Again, my picture is different because of a personal setting. Yours should say Friends Only.) But under "Hide this from," you can put the name of the person who you don't want to be able to make posts. Then, next time he or she visits your profile, there won't be a box for them to type in.

In the bottom photo, note the lack of the post box.

That's all there is to it. Be sure to check out the other guides for Facebook:

• Friend your parents on Facebook without sacrificing privacy
• Using Facebook without risking your job
• How to really secure Facebook
• How to make a Facebook group
• How to unblock Facebook
• How to tag photos on Facebook
• How to use Facebook without actually visiting Facebook
• How to stop certain friends from commenting on your Facebook posts

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