How to disable Facebook Places

So apparently Facebook Places is being rolled out today in Ireland. Mobile app users have been seeing the Places icon on their handsets for a few weeks now but until today the service wasn’t available in Ireland.

So what does Facebook places do?

Essentially it allows people to share their specific location like a status update at any time and tag others who are with them if they wish. So even if you decide you don’t want to use Places to share your location others can tag you as being present and share it anyway, similar to photo tagging.

How do I disable Places? I don’t want to be tagged!

It’s easy. Here’s a step-by-step of how to do it, just click on any of the images if you want to see the full size screengrab.

1. Log in to Facebook.
2. Click on Account at the top right of your screen.
3. Choose Privacy Settings from the menu that appears. A screen like this will appear:
4. With Custom selected (default in my case) on the left hand side, click on the small Customise settings link to open a screen like this:
5. You can then adjust your settings as you wish for both Places I check in to and Friends can check me in to places. When you click the latter you should see a screen like this:
6. Click on the button I have highlighted above on the pop-up presented and choose Disabled.
7. Hit OK when you’re done to return to the settings screen.